Magazine Advert Analysis

JLS Magazine Advert

Image
The magazine is advertising JLS and their new album 'Jukebox'. JLS's genre is of pop and is very contemporary so they are dressed in a fashion which reflects their style. They've had a synthetic approach to their style and method of selling, for example, selling themselves as a recent group of stars like Dyer suggests, because of their influence from the X Factor and the fact that they are young and enthusiastic.
The image shows them wearing clothing that is designed to make them look attractive appeal to a young audience, mainly young females. The background is made colourful and a photograph of a CD player and speakers has been enlarged and superimposed onto a city landscape to portray their urban style of pop music. A 'rainbow' of colours are used to enhance the overall image of JLS and to draw attention to the advert.
Text
In big bold white letters is the title of JLS in sans serif font with smooth, rounder edges on the letters to make it more contemporary. The star above the 'J' is used seclusive way to positively rate the group.
Below, is the title of the album 'Jukebox' which is enhance by the clever colour text underneath which is more spread out to almost illuminate the title.
The next line of text is 'The incredible new album', used to clearly rate the album and therefore, the band, anonymously so people are inclined to presume that whoever said it was 'incredible' is someone worth listening to.
Below that are the details which tell the audience what fantastic singles it includes. Then the release date written clearly and larger than the lines about the singles.
The next and final lines of text are advertising the extra DVD by saying 'Pre-order' which is cleverly written to manipulate the audience, e.g. "Pre- Order" instead of "Can you pre-order?" which is more of a command rather than a request. The text gives the date of the release, the title of the Movie in larger letters and the website for details people might want to look at, written in small letters. The image helps sell this DVD separately by it's contrast of background colours where the text begins, using purple for the background instead og orange, which indicates this change of subject more clearly.
A photo of the DVD is put to the side of the text to help audiences refer to it when reading. Overall, these small contributions make the advert much easier for people to read, meaning they take it in more.

Digipack Analysis

 David Strafford's 'Better Late Than Never'

Front Cover
The front shows a manipulated image of David who is a local solo artist, creating a name for himself and his folk/acoustic music. His logo is at the top right and printed largely so that the audience can remember it.
His face takes up more than half of the front cover for the same reason, to help people remember him, since this digipack is his first EP.

Back Cover
On the back is the logo again and the name of the EP in all lower caps for a more contemporary appearance which would appeal to a younger audience.
The tracks are listed in a line below the EP name
The background image adds a slightly abstract feel to the digipack which conveys his style, however I think that the cover is bland, because it lacks colour and therefore doesn't show the artist's passion for his work. It doesn't appeal to any specific audience, instead, it tries to cover too great an audience, especially since he is little known.




Inside Cover
The inside page has a similar background to keep continuation of the style. At the top is the web address for David Strafford so that people can easily find him and see what more he does if they liked the EP. Other addresses are given below for Facebook and Twitter.
In the centre, written in an italic handwritten font is a quote from Bob Dylan, one of his inspirations, which also gives an idea of the style of music David plays.
At the bottom is the album name again, for repetition so people remember it. In smaller font size below that is a list of names that were involved in making and producing the EP, including David Strafford.



 CD Holder

The image behind the CD holder is an abstract ink sketch of a person sitting with their head against their knees which is used to describe the album and link to the title 'Better Late Than Never', Which shows the emotion of the album.
The CD itself is a plain sky blue with the logo for David Strafford on it.
Over all, I find that the digipack lacks enthusiasm, but I studied it so that I could learn more from it.
I've learned that colour is important for presenting an album in a positive way and that it can portray the artist themselves, and have both positive and negative effects on how the audience views the artist and their products as a whole.
The layout and use of text style is also vital to helping people remember your products as an artist by making words easier to read.

Digipack Analysis

Magazine Advert Analysis

Kings of Leon is a popular rock band which formed in 1999 originating from Oklahoma. The genre was very much southern rock with blues influences but over the years the band has expanded their style and appealed to a wider audience. Kings of Leon won two BRIT awards in 2008 which is the same year as the poster for the 'Only By The Night' album on the left.
2008 was a major year for the band as they grew more and more popular amongst UK fans as well as in America.

The poster shows the lead singer (Caleb Followill) because it is important for the band to maintain it's popularity by advertising their star. The image is a set of four photographs which have been rearranged to create an unusual distortion on Caleb's face, which relates to Dyer's stardom theory that the star must be absent and present at the same time for the audience. The photograph interests people and the audience wants to know what he looks like in a real perspective.

Caleb appears to be wearing some kind of feathered or fur mohican and make-up which has been painted on his face in the shape of owl eyes. This is used to describe the style of the band, since they were fairly new to Britain at this time, which is that they are a more Western rock band with a 'wild side'. The colour of the photograph has also been changed for a dramatic effect, which is very masculine and has a dominantly male appeal.

The name of the band is put at the top of the page in bold white capitals and in sans serif font so that it contrasts with the rest of the page to make it eye-catching. Underscores have been used to put a bold emphasis on how it reads, e.g instead of "Kings of Leon," it's read more like this:
"KINGS.....OF......LEON!"
Underscores have also been used for the album name, but it doesn't have the bright white contrasting colours so that it does not distract from the name of the band.
The context below is put in grey and is smaller in size so that is can fit in and doesn't distract from the album name. The release date is put in large red letters to show that it is important, so that people will remember.
Other company logos and web addresses are put at the very bottom.

Digipack Analysis

Magazine Advert Analysis

Music Video Anaylsis

Inside Outside by Delirious?

The song was released in 2004 along with the music video. The video doesn't do much in the way of creating an image for the band, because the band is older. Instead the camera work evenly focusses on each of the members of the band, but maybe with a little bit more focus on Martin (lead singer.) The video does not
relate well to the song either, instead the video and it's purpose are to create atmosphere for the song. It does this with the special lighting
effects involved and the mirrored shots as the transport with the band inside travels through the tunnel. The band members are shown looking out of the car in fascination and wonder as the rain patters on the windows which links to the lyrics 'I see you in the storm.' The video is used mainly to advertise the song, if anything, not the band, which was the band's intention: They didn't want to draw attention to themselves, but more or less the songs they were playing, and now many of their songs are played in churches and youth events worldwide.
The lighting effects in the video are used to express captivation as light rays pass through the members of the band as they are playing which again ties into the lyrics.
The band's costume is very much what they would usually wear at concerts and events, i.e. jackets, preferably leather, jeans, shirts, wool hats. Each band member has their own unique style two within the band's style so the audience is familiarized with each member to the extent that they are recognisable.

Music Video Analysis

She Won't Wait Forever by In Hindsight

The video was directed by Chris Clough, locally based in Nottingham. The band, In Hindsight, is young and only been together for a year and a half producing singles in Nottingham and playing at concerts all around the city.
The music video's main purpose is to advertise the band, and being a young band, the fashion of costume is very contemporary and it follows a 'synthetic' route as described by Keith Negus in his ideology of synthetic creativity. Although the band is free-lance and not under the power of any particular record company, the music video that the self employed director had made for them has shaped In Hindsight's image, especially with the music video being the first that they have made.

Their particular genre is 'boy band' rock which is aimed mainly at a young female audience.
The music video is used to put emphasis on the song and the relationship between the style of the band and their song. The type of clothes, hair, locations and props are used to attract the female audience so the band will get much support from their audience and their attention which has lead to much blogging and social networking. This ties into Dyers's star theory of simultaneous presence and absence of the star for the audience.
There is a clear star in the band because he takes the most focus in th
e song which is more evidence for Negus' theory of synthetic creativity, through the video which creates the main image of the band, being Michael Newcombe, the lead singer/band member. The image has been created by someone else, not the band, so therefore the band is almost forced into having to keep the style the same as what the audience first knows it to be.
The camera set up has a series of shots and angles which display the entire band and the location being what appears to be an attic room with posters on the wall gives the music video more interesting feel and can intrigue the audience to want to know more about the location. Also, the location is local to Nottingham which has another effect of interest on the audience that is mainly in Nottingham and the East Midlands. Familiar places that the audience recognises is useful because it presents the band as 'totally accessible' to the extent that the audience feels they can relate to the band.

Here is a link to the video because it is now a private viewing so it can't be watched through YouTube publicly:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0-1oDaCQ2Y&feature=youtu.be&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Ds0-1oDaCQ2Y%26feature%3Dyoutu.be

Music Video Anaylsis

Let Me Rediscover You by Downhere

The music video for 'Let Me Rediscover You' by Downhere was released in 2011 by Centricity Music.
The song follows a very hymn-like feel in it's chords which have an almost unpredictable rhythm, and the lyrics are very traditional, i.e. 'anew,' which isn't used commonly today. However despite this, the instrumental is very modern and it has an amazingly bold sound which works very well, giving it a modern classical emphasis. The video helps convey this classical feel in the use of the white painted piano which is ornate and the lighting which has a flickering old fashion style to show as if the image on the instruments is being projected with an old film projector of the 1930's.

The lighting also has a rippling water-like effect which cleverly reflects the idea of wonder and beauty, linked to the lyrics 'rediscover', making these lyrics and the chorus appeal to the audience, hence making them want to watch it again.

These emotions are also shown through the images projected on the instruments, e.g the image of the girl catches the ideas of childhood and 'exploring' which again links well to the lyrics 'rediscover.' Extreme close-ups on the eyes are used when the girl grows up and the images show her as a teenager going back to the place she found when she was young, and then again the images show her going back when she is much older.

The whole story resonates with the entire song, yet doesn't prevent the main focus of the band as the shots circle the band members to create a more dynamic feel; the pianist being the first as he opens the song with a melody. However the lead singer is seen the most and in close-up shots so that the audience are able to refer to him when they think of the band. He more or less becomes the star, according to Dyer's theory about stars being absent and present for the audience at the same time: The lead singer is shown often, but each shot of him is very brief, which leaves the audience wanting a further glimpse of him.

What is the Purpose of a Music Video?

This is the question we were asked in lesson after we'd completed our lip-synch task.
We came up with some ideas of our own and put them into a mind map.
These are the ideas we had for this question 'what is the purpose of a music video?'

• To reach a wider audience, for example; of those who like films/videos and try to advertise music to them. 
• To advertise products visually, e.g. clothes, make-up, games, CD's, phones, etc which can be included in the music video as props and costume. This is often known as synergy.
• To combine the work of two creative arts, which may mean more jobs for people involved in the media industry or just create a more dynamic way of listening to music.

We explained what we knew already, but then we were given a set of theories devised by the following four people:

Adorno:

Born in 1903, Adorno's theory about the purpose of a music video

was that cultural industries produce a mass of products that have replaced key art forms which might lead people to question social life. Adorno suggested that the culture industry has created and promoted 'false needs', and to such an extent that people's 'true needs' have been replaced.
He's basically saying that audiences are being manipulated to purchase products that they don't need and that they're in a spiral of false socialism.






Dick Hebdige:

Hebdige is a more modern theorist who is on the contrary to Adorno's theory. Hebdige argues that consumption is an on going process which can pursuade audiences in  their social life to change, but not be entirely manipulated into buying products. Hebdige says that people still have there freedom to refuse large companies and form their own subcultures. However other companies can adapt to the audience's subcultures and sell products that they will consume.









Keith Negus:

Negus has come up with two distinct ideologies as ways of thinking about potential artists within the music industry. Negus has more of an idea about where the music comes from that has shaped a culture of consumerism.

• The Organic Ideology of Creativity

This ideology suggests a 'naturalistic' approach to artists; that their success is in their own talent and skill, who have to be trained by the record companies.
The image of the artists is 'enhanced' by the record company and emphasis is given to the album sales and the construction of a successful back catalogue, which is often aimed at older or more sophisticated consumers.

• The Synthetic Ideology of Creativity

This ideology shows another process with a combinatorial approach to artists and material.
The image of the artist is constructed by the record company before they have been test and tried and will be given time to prove their worth. Emphasis is given to single sales and first album sales. Often aimed at a young audience and mass consumerism. These artists often last only breifly but make a lot of profit in such a short amount of time.

Richard Dyer:

Dyer has written much about the stars in music and how stars have been given their 'image' to pursuade audiences to consume their products.
Dyer came up with a theory involving two key paradoxes to how a star has been channeled into a ever consuming world via magazines, TV, internet etc.

• Paradox 1

The star must simultaneously be ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer, which basically means audiences must find them inspiring, because they are 'ordinary' people who have supposidly 'achieved' so much.

• Paradox 2

The star must simultaneously be present and absent. In other words completely accessable through the media, but also distant so individualys are encouraged to go and see them, e.g. at concerts or other events.

Director Research - Bob Giraldi

Bob Giraldi is an American music video, TV and film Director, best known for his music video for Michael Jackson's song 'Beat It.'
He began teaching advertising at The School of Visual Arts in New York and later became chairman of the Advertising Department in 1968. Giraldi first worked with Michael Jackson in a Pepsi advert along with Lionel Richie. It was then in 1983 when Giraldi wrote and directed 'Beat It'

Other music videos Giraldi made include:
'Say Say Say' with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney,
'Love Is A Battlefield' with Pat Benatar,
'Hello' and 'Running With The Night' by Lionel Richie,
'Pieces Of Ice' by Diana Ross,
and he also directed the Will Smith Song; 'Just The Two Of Us.'

Girladi is a well known Music Video Director and has worked with many famous singers/songwriters and actors. He therefore covers a wide audience. His style goes with what most of the 'stars' suggest in terms of video content, but his main ambition is in dance and videoing dance routines.
Throughout most of his videos, there is much movement and in 'Beat It' and 'Love Is A Battlefield' there is more strict choreography. The type of music he most focusses around is pop.

Director Research - John Hardwick

John Hardwick is a British music video, film and TV director
He first studied at Swansea University from 1984 until 1988. He did American Studies and Literature. In his time there, he also spent one year at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Hardwick has also made a great many music videos but was first discovered in 1997 when two members of the band, The Beekeepers, had seen a short film John had made which appeared on Channel 4. The Beekeepers managed to track down John and convince him to do their first music video, 'Do You Behave Like That At Home?' which appeared on many TV shows in 1997.

Later on, Hardwick was discovered by more bands including the Arctic Monkeys and Keane. The Arctic Monkeys worked with him on a few occasions. John directed the music video for 'The Lovers Are Losing' by Keane and the Arctic Monkey's music video for 'Leaving Before The Lights Come On.'


Hardwick's music videos, especially these two, ('The Lovers Are Losing' and 'Leave Before The Lights Come On')
are of a particular genre and style. Hardwick's main focus appears to be rock/pop. His style is quite niche and does shows little experimentation in use of editing and manipulating shots like Thraves. Instead he is more simplistic in comparison to Thraves, however there is more of a story to his music videos, e.g. in 'Leave Before The Lights Come On' it is a suicide story where a woman appears to be in distress, attracting a man to come to her rescue, but she really just wants some attention. The music video doesn't show great technical skill but nevertheless, it is intriguing because of the storyline. Hardwick's years studying literature must have paid off.

Director Research - Jamie Thraves

Jamie Thraves is a British music video and film director. He began making experimental films at Hull University. Previously, he studied illustration which encouraged him to go down the creative lines working in the media industry. He made two videos; 'Scratch' and 'The Take-Out', which later won him many awards at short film festivals across the world after he had graduated from university. He then joined the Royal College of Art in 1993 where he made another award winning film 'the Hackney Downs'. After his time in the RCA, he went into a music video company called 'Oil Factory.' He made a major music video for Radiohead for their song, 'Just' which had a huge impact on audiences and Thraves got a lot of attention because of its strong narrative structure and the script. The subtitles are also strange for a music video and they have an unusually clever twist when in the end no one knows what the man says, which creates great intrigue.
There was much discussion for nearly 15 years by fans of Radiohead about what he might have said.


Thraves also made the music video for 'The Scientist' by Coldplay, which funnily enough also involves Chris Martin lying down on a bed mattress. The ideas behind the two music videos have clear connections, which show that Jamie Thraves thinks out of the ordinary on how he can portray a story so that it captures the viewer. For example, the music video for Coldplay is filmed and shown in reverse to tie in with the lyrics, 'I'm going back to the start,' which is quite literal and surreal. The music video for 'Just' shows a similar surreality.
Christ Martin in 'The Scientist' music video had to learn to sing the lyrics backwards so that he would appear to be singing the song when the the film was reversed. This took him a month to learn. The music video was filmed at a variety of locations, including London and Bourne Woods in Surrey.
















What I find astonishing about Thraves' work is how he relates the video to the lyrics. What I like is his use of film in preference to special effects and computer graphics. In The Scientist, he takes simple shots but puts them in reverse and makes use of what could be really uninteresting, and turns them into something new and eye catching. I know they don't seem so new now, but of the time they were made, it wasn't really a path explored before in terms of what he used in both Coldplay and Radiohead's music tracks.
I also like how Thraves' music videos aren't too 'in your face' so you can actually listen to the music and relate it to the video rather than only remembering the video because it had too much of an impact.

Lip Syncing Task Storyboard

 The storyboard was the final planning stage before we went on to film our music video. We put everything from our notes and the mind-map in order along with the types of camera angles/shots, edits including the cuts and mise en scene, so that we had a list of what we needed at each and ever shot.

The storyboard helped us keep ourselves organised and keep things in order. It saved a lot of time, because without it, we'd have to have examined all the notes we'd taken until we'd understood what was needed for each shot. The storyboard helped us see clearly what was needed for every shot.

Lip Syncing Task Mind Map

For the mind map, which we initially wrote out on A3, I have done a short Prezi showing what we wrote a bit more clearly.
Our mind mapping was the next stage on from brainstorming and taking note. We were now working on putting our notes in order under headings so we found it easier when sketching our storyboard.

Brainstorming our Preliminary Task

Before we filmed for the lip synch task, we took notes and made points on things that would help us co-ordinate and make the short film seem less tedious, since we only had a small amount of time and resources.
This is a photograph of us (Jordan and myself) in class taking notes, thinking of props, i.e. headphones and the microphone. We thought about clothes and how we could change tops  when we were singing 'It doesn't matter what you wear.' We also took note on different camera shots to give more variety to the clip.
However we made it harder than it needed to be, because we spent so long thinking about how we could make the video really interesting, but the main idea was to learn how to lip synch effectively. All we needed was to keep it simple, so when it came to filming, we didn't take all the shots we initially planned.

In these photographs  above, we were annotating the lyrics sheet to help us co-ordinate which parts we were supposed to be singing, i.e. Jordan as Mick Jagger and myself as David Bowie.

Overall, we learnt how to work well together and communicate well and negotiate through our notes and annotations

Preliminary Task: Lip Synch

In our Media Studies lesson, my friend Jordan and I were asked to create a short video including lip syncing for a chosen section of a song, 'Dancing In The Street'.
When we did our preliminary task, which we were given 6 hours to film and edit in, I realised how much time  and effort goes into producing even a basic music video.
I'm sure that the time we had finished was close to going over the 6 hours we were given.
Not only was time a difficulty, but also knowing how to film outside and be able to hear and sing to the music correctly above all the noise of the wind and cars. We tried two locations, the second one, the one we used, was much less busy with traffic than the previous. In order to be able to hear the music we used the mp3 file which we downloaded onto my friend's phone and listen to it through headphones as we were singing.
We spent so much time resetting the camera and the music each time we made a mistake in our lip syncing. What I learnt from this process was how important it is to recite the lyrics over and over until you get them perfect each time, otherwise you're wasting valuable time filming.
Some of the shots were also out of focus. This made me realise how beneficial it is to keep everything in focus, even short scenes.
Next time I will:

• Take better care of focussing when filming
• Recite my words or make sure whoever is lip syncing recites them to their very best
• Think carefully of good locations to film
• I will also ask anyone with more experience how they filmed outside without the use of headphones or earpieces to help with timing when they were singing
• I will ask if there is any other methods to filming a music video.

Shot Count Analysis

Shot Number	Shot Type	Shot Length	Description	Edit to next Shot
1	Mid shot	4 seconds	Shot of elephant holding a sign 'when she was just a girl'	Straight cut
2	Low angle shot	1.7 seconds	Low angle shot of the escalators	Straight cut
3	Panning shot	1.3 seconds	Shot pans up the escalators as the elephant passes by	Straight cut
4	Long shot	2 seconds	Shot of the train and the length of the platform	Straight cut
5	Extreme close up	0.3 seconds	Shot looking through the train window as it is in motion	Fade
6	Long shot	1.2 seconds	Shot looking into the passenger coach from the door	Straight cut
7	Long shot	1 second	Shot looking into the passenger coach	Straight cut
8	Low angle shot	1.7 seconds	Shot looking up at the elephant on the train	Straight cut
9	Long shot, mid shot	0.8 seconds	Shot of the elephant with a sign 'para' to the left hand side on the platform	Straight cut
10	Long shot, mid shot	0.7 seconds	Shot of the elephant with a sign 'para' to the right hand side on the platform	Straight cut
11	Long shot, mid shot	1 second	Shot of the elephant with the sign 'paradise' in the centre on the platform	Straight cut
12	Long shot, close up	1 second	Close up shot of the elephant's face to the left with a long shot of the passenger coach	Straight cut
13	Close up shot	1 second	Close up shot of the sign 'Heathrow Airport'	Straight cut
14	Close up shot	0.4 seconds	Close up of the moving train	Straight cut
15	Close up shot	1.3 seconds	Shot of the elephant peering round a corner at the airport	Straight cut
16	Long shot	1.2 seconds	Long shot of wing of a plane and two airport staff	Straight cut
17	Long shot	1 second	Shot looking under the plane towards the shed building	Straight cut
18	Long shot, close up	1.4 seconds	Long shot looking from the shed building at the plane as the elephant runs out	Straight cut
19	Close up, long shot	1 second	Close up shot of the back of the elephants head as she runs towards the plane (long shot)	Straight cut
20	Long shot	0.7 seconds	Shot of the plane and the elephant	Straight cut
21	Mid shot	1.2 seconds	Shot of the underside of the plane as it takes off	Straight cut
22	Long shot, areal shot/high angle	1 second	Shot of the plane from behind and above in flight	Straight cut

Track: Paradise

Artist: Coldplay

Director: Mat Whitecross

Release Date: 19^th October 2011

Video Length: 4:21 mins

Chosen 30 second segment: 0:41-1:11

Number of shots in the entire video: 140

Average shot length: 1.2 seconds

Number of shots in the 30 second segment: 22

Number of CU: 6

Number of ECU: 1

Number of LS: 14

Number of MS: 5

Number of Panning Shots: 1

Number of Tilts: 3

Other Shots: 0

Analysis:

From this process, I have learnt about what shots are used in a music video and the pace at which they change from one to the next.
For example they used a lot of long shots crossed with mid shots, as the elephant character was positioned often to the side of the shot with a long shot of the background. This showed me that they were thinking about the theme of the song where it talks about paradise, so the camera shots gave a sense of freedom and space by comparing the character to the large backgrounds. 
It is also important to keep the shot changes at a regular pace in line with key parts of the music, for example, when Chris Martin sings the chorus 'Para, para...Paradise,'

The shots change to the beat of the drums. Other times, when the beat isn't so significant, the shots don't change in sync with the drums.

I've noticed and taken thought on how fast the shots change as well as keeping in time. The shots change fastest in the highs of the song and slowest in the lows, where the music isn't as energetic.

If the shots change slow throughout the entire song, The energy in the music wouldn't reach it's full potential. However the type of shots and edits especially work well even though they are simple, because they don't distract the audience from the music.