How typical are your chosen texts to their genre's?

Fish tank's genre fits very well to a typical social realism film. The opening to the film in the first scene uses diegetic sound of someone breathing very heavily, with diegetic sound of passing cars. The typical conventions of a social realism film is an urban location along with fish tank, the highrise buildings, run down park, gangs another example of this being used by other social realism films is "A taste of honey" The urban location dark location with working class. Fish tank uses a handheld camera, taking in things from her point of view making the audience feel like the story is real, for example again in the first scene mia is watching the girls dancing while the group of lad watch them, the camera moves from mia looking at the girls in her point of view to mia's face and reaction to what is going on, the main character Mia is also shown as a alienated character, everyone else around her is with someone else whereas she is constantly alone, walking very fast to which seem nowhere really. Another typical convention of social realism is the way the characters dress to where they live, for example the urban clothes, baggy vests or hoodies with tracky bottoms and hoop earrings show the cheap style of working class making everything more realistic, the boys show a social realism representation of chavs again creating a urban lifestyle feeling by no tops, covered in tattoo's with tracky bottoms and a barking dog.    

Discuss the audience appeal of your three main texts. [30]

The American television series Madmen produced by AMC and only available to sky Atlantic viewers. looking at the certain episode "The other women " in season five and the way the audience was attracted. By using the uses and gratifications theory the producers aimed the episode to the middle to upper class, the educated. The episode has been cleverly constructed for example when don goes to warn joan to tell her she doesn't have to go along with sleeping with the jaguar man, the audience thinks that he has convinced her to not do it, until it blacks out and takes you to the board room and Don talking to the Jaguar company offering their ideas of the advert. The audience thinks that joan is sleeping with the man while this is going on when it then reveals that this had happened the night before and don was too late to tell her. The construction of this has been very clever, it keeps the audience engaged, thinking that Don was the hero but then goes backwards in the story and twists it to him not being fast enough.

I looked at another Television series, Lost, a more mainstream text aimed at passive viewers. One scene i focused on was a walk through the forest on the island; It started off with a crane shot looking down on the group of people walking through the rainforest, a non-diegetic high pitch sound is played rather quiet to begin with, two male members of the group start an argument about the radio, as there voices rises the diegetic sound gets higher building up tension for the audience, making them feel like something bad is going to happen, then a very loud non-diegetic sound, like a thud. The males stop argueing immediatly. All they hear then is the russleing of grass and a growling noise. The camera then changes to a handheld camera effect making the camera shaky the camera cuts back and forth towards the unknown animal heading their way, the audience can not see the animal but just hear a very loud noise and see long grass moving, it skips back to the group having a shell focus on each indivdial's face showing their scared facial expression, this has been done to create tension and get the audience excited and scared. cuts and whip pans are used to show the forest and the creature getting closer, the animal is being used as a mystery to make the audience more interested in the scene. the group starts running away with diegetic screams from the two girls, Sawyer stays, a close up shot is used of his face, he doesnt look scared but in thought to what it is coming towards him. He points his hand out and the audience doesnt see what is in his hand, it then cuts back to the rest of the group when you hear the sound of a gun shot, it cuts back to Sawyer with a wide shot as you see something big and white coming towards sawyer while he is still shooting at it. you see the white animal thud in front of sawyer but not seeing what the animal is, the group return to sawyer, noticing that the animal is a bear, the camera pans across the huge animal, not really giving the audience a clear view, this makes the audience still in question to what it is giving of enigma codes, the audience are passive not really thinking just watching waiting for the programme to give the answer. Kate then answers the enigma "its not just a bear, its a polar bear" a non-diegetic sound of a drum beat and a black out, this is to make the audience stay interested in the programme, and then ask why there is a polar bear in the forest while an advert on the tele comes on. This keeps the audience wanting to watch the programme to see what happens next.

Louis Theroux is a documentary film by the bbc and shows The worlds most hated family, this series attracts its audience by using shocking footage about the family's weird life. It informs and educates the curious audience that want to know about how they live and what they do. Louis Theroux attracts the audience more, he asks questions that everyone wants to know but will not ask, he says many things that he shouldn't but in a formal way. This makes the audience attracted in case a fight or an argument starts. This particular series has a lot of social interaction.  

evaluation

For my production piece i created three magazine covers in the influence of the American magazine RollingStone. I had researched how women are represented throughout RollingStone magazine articles. I had found that they had been represented as sex symbols for the male gaze even in today's generation, so i took my research into mind and demonstrated this in my production.
           I looked at a variety of existing women RollingStone magazines and the layout to create the right conventions of an American magazine cover. I investigated where the barcode, pricing and website went plus the sizing of the images, to make my covers look as professional as possible.

          My first cover i downloaded an appropriate typeface for the title of the magazine company (lobster 1.4), and used a colour that would be an recognisable logo to the selected audience. I used a strong main image by having the models hair the same colour as the logo, with direct eye contact with the audience, catching their eye as they walk past, the colour connentations i have used are black and red through out this magazine cover, this is to fit in with the main headline, "Britains badgirl" the red and black represent danger, i have made the model only wear a bra and leather jacket for the male gaze theory i had been investigating. The shiny leather jacket and bright pink lipstick is backing up the representation of women, made to look sexy for the male readers. The audience gratifications of this magazine is aimed at both genders, of middle class as my magazine is quite a high price $4.99, the magazine is a old school theme but has all music related news and gossip.
         The key strengths with this particular magazine cover are the use of complementing colours have been used to match with the image making this look as professional as possible, the sizing and lighting used for the image makes the magazine look real. A weakness with the magazine cover i feel is the poor background, i found it hard to find a colour that wouldn't make the red font look too bright, i didn't want a white background with these colours as it would have took the main image out of focus. I have layered the background to create a dark glow around the main image keeping it the main view point. This was done deliberately to engage the viewer and focus the eye on the image so the reader wants to look further.

Again on my second magazine cover i matched the size and font of the main title to make it recognisable but changed the colour to sky blue to catch the preferred audience's attention, this colour has changed due to a summer edition (blue represents blue sky), this has been done purposely for advertising and marketing, making the readers want to know what's so speacil about the magazine and why the main title is a different colour. The style and text have been changed to match the summer genre, it's content is summer festivals and fashion tips from Lady Gaga with an exclusive story, the main image this time i used was a simple image with the model looking away creating a suttle sexual connotation, by using her long hair to cover her face, this was due to my research investigation that lead me to these. I used above lighting when taking my image to create natural lighting across one side of her face, i feel this is a positive aspect of my work. The background again could have been changed to a summer colour for example a pail yellow or orange. I set the release date to a summer month July, to fit in with the festival genre, giving time to inform the readers when the festivals are on. My chosen font for this particular magazine has been selected from my research investigation where  the main image is slightly different, by putting a twist with a close up shot and different style of font. This again makes the preferred and negotiated audience both look twice about wanting to read the magazine.
For my final magazine cover i used the recognisable font and colour from my first magazine for all audience types. I put the main image slightly out of centre to make the audience see the name of the magazine, then down towards the image. I also put the main image in front of the magazine name, this shows that even if the audience can not see the whole name, they still know exactly what it says. This is aimed at negotiated readers, people who know the magazine well. I made an 'inside special' by making a black and white box as part of a trademark for my magazine i seen this being used in my pre production and part of american magazine conventions. I kept the colours with mainly red, an improvement with my main image could have been edited into the magazine. I feel that i have made three professional magazine covers without the high-tecnology.

explore the impact of digital technologies on your selected industry?

explore the impact of digital technologies on your selected industry? (30)

Technology today has developed so much, boosting the album sales and views of music video's by using fast downloadable singles and promoting their new releases on social networking sites, getting a very personal relationship to fans. Nirvana never had this sort of technology when releasing there  album "Nevermind" making it very difficult to keep fans updated with the latest news, they had to promote singles and tours by being on television programmes Johnathan Ross or mtv, they now use the internet to allow a new generation of fans, they have their Nevermind album on itunes and youtube; when the album was first released in 1991it was only thought to sell 250,000 copies over the years now using the internet the album has sold over £30 million, this is the impact of digital technology and how powerful it is.
Lady Gaga is the queen of digital technology and has boost her career rapidly, she was the most followed person on twitter until recently, the social networking site makes her a $30 million a year! just from posting and talking to her fans she calls "little monsters", this shows the digital technology gives a closer relationship between the artists and their fans making more reason for the fans to buy her products, this also makes her twitter account worth $90 million. Her album "The Fame" has sold over 12 million copies world wide making it the most downloaded album, her face is reconised by everyone in the world, her first single sold 419,000 downloads within a week

editing in progress...

To what extent do the different representations of Rihanna and Adele in RollingStone offer contrasting views of women

 

 

I will be analysing two issues from “Rolling Stones” including the front covers and main articles, one on Rihanna ‘RollingStone 2011’ (1) and the other on Adele ‘Rollingstone 2012’ (2) I will be studying how they both contrast with one another giving different views of women in the media by using different images and topics to fit the genre of the music artist. I will be applying the male gaze theory to show the representation of women artists and the image they present to their fans and readers, also if the images and words are really aimed at the women readers or just constructed to catch the male eye. Another theory I will be using to analyse this topic is the uses and gratifications theory by studying who the magazine is aimed at, what they take from the magazine and how the audience responds to the text in different ways. The hypodermic model is used by The online daily mirror (4) injecting their personal views into the passive readers who do not read Rollingstone influencing them to read the same message with the same negative attitude.

            Starting with the Rihanna issue (1) the main image on the front cover shows her standing in a seductive position with small ripped shorts and a crop top, her bright red hair covers the Rollingstone title showing the magazine is well known, her hair stands out using the red as a connotation to the Rollingstone title. The bold font reading “Rihanna strikes back” “pop’s Queen of Pain on Sexting, Bad Boys & Her Attraction to the Dark Side” This main title to the magazine appeals more towards the male audience talking about how Rihanna likes to be treated in the bedroom and how she is attracted to Bad Boys, this is a unique selling point for the magazine attracting the readers to the exclusive article. Using the uses and Gratification theory I found the main active audience was mostly males taking a hegemonic reading and personal relationship with Rihanna, by going into depth with what she likes and making the audience feel like they have had a personal conversation with a friend. The main image on the front cover has been constructed for a male point of view making this the Laura Mulvey male gaze theory and forcing the women readers to see in the males point of view. She has been constructed to connote to-be-looked-at-ness rather than a fashion icon to women, my research for the fans view has backed up the passive audience is women and the active audience is males, here is a quote from a male reader “So sexy Caribbean queen!!!!!” (7) When researching this certain article i found that a lot of women readers were very aggressive and angry about her one women from the same website as the male said “Pss i don’t really like her because she starts like a nice girls in the world of famous people and now she even dress like a bitch” (7) this type of impact is called catharsis, it makes people react when violent or sexual content has been shown in the media. The Online Daily Mail wrote an online article about the Rollingstone front cover “What a cheek! Rihanna wears racy spray-on hot pants for RollingStone cover” (4) they filled in the Daily Mail passive readers with the hypodermic model by giving them their opinion which their readers trust and will agree with. One male reader still commented (5) “she looks good. it’s good to have the option to flaunt it now while your young before it all goes south.” A women commented “She is known for her ample curves and the outrageous outfits, shouldn’t she be known for her talent, her singing or her music rather than her body and i think you’ll find, calling a tarty outfit ‘outrageous’ does not make it empowering”. The sexual content of the image caused an aggressive argument, getting people wound up about it and telling their friends who then join the discussion by looking at the article and joining in with the comments, this is the Two step flow theory. This strong main image is just a taste of how RollingStone show the constructed life and representation of Rihanna, on page 41 Rihanna has a very strong sexual visual with her lying on a fur blanket wearing just a knitted top and small hot pants her hair has small ringlets but big and messy, and a branch hanging out of her mouth, this image has been very sexualised making her bum cheek and mouth the only thing in focus, this makes the audience look at these first, she is being displayed as a sex symbol for the male gaze; this could be seen as  the Cultivation theory as the passive audience (women) are that used to seeing the repeated message of women portrayed in this way in the media it doesn’t shock them anymore, the picture gives away what the article is going to be about, just by looking at the image you can see that it is going to contain very sexual references on the next page. The bold masthead stating “Queen of Pain” gives you a much clearer image of what the article will be discussing, the subheading in smaller writing quotes “Spanking, Sexting, Spaghetti: One Hot Week With Pop’s Most Complicated Sex Symbol” the editor has used alliteration with the three s to make the caption sound sexy; this caption shows that this article has been wrote for the male audience, by even calling Rihanna ‘sex symbol’ shows the representation for women in today media is all about the way they look for the male audience and not about being an idol with their talented voices for young girls.  According to ‘bodyimagesite.com’ (18) kids have started to notice an emphasis on attractiveness in women and girls in the media, 57% of girls have said that female characters in the media are “better looking” than the women and girls they know in real life. On page 42 and 43 of the magazine (1) Rihanna has been constructed and told to pose in another sexual stance, she is dressed in a rope bikini with tattoos on show, hip sticking out with her pulling on her hair while she closes her eyes pulling a sex-face, the scene behind her looks like a jungle, or rain forest, they have set the scene to make her look adventurous and like a lion with her huge red hair, this represents her masthead ‘queen’ looking like the queen of the jungle.

 Rolling stones  readers getting involved with  other fans, by sharing their opions 

http://perezhilton.com/2011-04-13-adele-rolling-stone-magazine-may-2011#.UMHCGI5y--I

Fans discussing the photoshopping of Adele's face on rolling stones first article