Media Revision: Music Magazines

• The font used for the main splash is Sans serif, meaning without serif. This is a very modern representation and suggests that this magazine is very up to date and focuses on modern music news. The 'All Saints' font is also in a stencil style which could bring in the idea of masculinity and military style, i will link back to this later.
• The dress code for the band is also very masculine. This could hint at the masculine appeal they band has, or the opposite and how they are modern women and don't conform to the traditional views of women. They are wearing a basic set in terms of colour palette and it is mainly black and white. This could be reflective of the magazine cover too as it is similar to the colour palette used there.
• The group that are the main splash are very assertive in their pose, almost military and they stare at the camera intently. This could connote ideas that they don't conform to the rules of society and they feel different from everyone else. This can be further reinforced by the quote pulled from their interview 'We always felt like outsiders' and 'We didn't conform to the rules'. It is also obvious they are the main part of the magazine as they take up the majority of the space on the page and the font size for their band name is also the biggest on the page, in contention with the magazine logo.
• The layout to the magazine is also very grid lined so this can further strengthen the military style of the band and their way of representation. The grid lines also hold structure in the front page, making it easy to find stories contained within the magazine.
• Other musicians are mentioned at the bottom of the page such as Paul Young and other special interviews are also made clear to read. This can help to still attract readers that aren't so much interested in the main splash but are fans of the music magazine, We Love Pop. Situating this at the bottom of the page, it makes the interviews easier to locate, however the font size is relatively small so it has been made apparent to the reader that We Love Pop doesn't think they are as important as the 'All Saints' are. 
• The magazine also shows other music celebrities and important people in the music industry to help to further draw potential readers in as they are trying to show the wide variety of music and musicians they incorperate into their issues.

Cuffs Exam Question 3

How far does the extract try to create a sense that it is portraying 'real life'?

• In your answer you should: analyse aspects of the extract giving detailed examples 
• judge how far these aspects create a sense of watching 'real life'

In the extract, 'Cuffs' there are many different ways that they make the scene look 'realistic'. One of these are certain cultural references. In the opening scene of the extract, there are two policewomen. One of them is wearing a hijab. A hijab is a Islamic piece of clothing and with this they are not only bringing realism, but also adds diversity to the cast and the series as a whole. There is also use of natural lighting. This also adds realism, as the lighting is not unnatural, that being there is no external or obvious lights used in order to make the scene look as though you are there with the actors.

The scene location is also very important. In this extract it is a shopping center and a motorway in Brighton. Some people who watch the programme may know the location in real life, and/or visited it. The scenes in the extract also portray real life events and struggles that many people face on a day to day life. They don't attempt to censor anything unless it is direct violence or a 'bloodly' scene.

Double Page Spread Work

This is the double page spread Joe an I made in Photoshop. In the lesson, we tried Adobe InDesign. However the software was significantly harder to use so we switched over to Photoshop. In what took us five minutes, we generated the end product that took us almost the entire lesson.

The Final Product

In the final product, I took charge of the aesthetic prospect of everything. As we did it on the Electronic Hip Hop band Gorillaz, Joe wrote the article as I had little knowledge of them.

Cuffs Exam Question 2

How is sound used to create meaning? Give at least two examples.(5marks) 

Notes

Non digetic sound with the everyday noise of a bustling pier
Squeal of the JCB's tires
Non digetic sound with the crashing of the glass and the whirring of the JCB forklift
Digetic Radio walkie talkie off screen sound, we listen to the conversation. Contrast with the shock of the robbery. As they hear this they jump into action, cueing the post production editing of an up tempo song playing.
Police sirens is non digetic, there is music in the background to add a rhythm
As they are called into action, the main police officers voice becomes harsh and loud. Each officer shouts at one another to convey information.
Sounds of the police cars adds to the effect of the police car accelerating, this conveys the way they are driving.
The song changes and ups the tempo even more and also becomes louder.
Inside the van, an announcement requesting back up
The rookie police officer blunders with the commentary of the situation at hand. This is digetic.

My Answer

The smashing of the glass also connotes images of violence and the action of the scene. Partnered with the sounds of people in distress, this gives off the effect of anarchy.

Without the post production music and sound effects added would put the viewer in the dark. The squealing of the wheels and the roaring of the engine connote danger and a sense of urgency. The squeals show the reader the high speed at which the car is driving. The screeching and the earsplitting siren also connotes police urgency as you usually hear it when the police are called into action.

Post production music, also adds a certain tone to a specific event happening on-screen. When the chase scene begins, up tempo music starts playing in the background to make the viewer on edge. This is effective as the specific choice of music will connote certain emotions such as urgency and fear. 

Media Question 8

On the front page of the observer, they have boxes containing the story you will find if you decide to click on them. They have a punchy Title and on the smaller ones, a small description of what the story entails. There is a subcategory called featured, which are the trending/important stories on the Observer website. This is important as it can bring more people into their site to read their stories they have on offer. There is also an image on the front of the boxes that have a slight relation to the story too. The colour scheme of the Observer is classy and is considered as professional colours, which on a newspaper website shows the sophisticated nature of it.

The typeface used is important too. There are two different types of typefaces, Serif and Sans Serif. Sans means without, the Serif is the detail on the side of the letters. So Sans Serif means without Serif. Arial font (The one used now) is an example of a Sans Serif font. Serif fonts make the reading of big text extracts easier as the brain sees the font linking to the other words. This is why it is used so frequently on older broadsheet newspapers. In this case the Observer newspaper website uses Serif font as it is more sophisticated than a Sans Serif. 

The uses of narrative change from each story, The main story on the front page is in first person as the person who wrote the story refers to themselves as I. The next story is in third person and refers to the guy in it (Jordan Peele) as his name, this is third person. There is also a story written in the second person, this is referring to the reader as you or your. It is an effective way of breaking the fourth wall and connecting to the reader, as it seems they are talking to someone rather than a page on a website.

The first story on the front page is a controversial and involves gender politics.This is engages the reader as it is a sensitive topic to talk about, this will overpower the moral side of the reader and their curiosity may get the better of them. 

My Media Production Company

IGNITE FLIMS

I named my production company is named IGNITE FILMS. I did this because it is based on my username on many gaming platforms that I use on a daily basis. I brain-stormed for logo ideas. I got ideas from a marketing workshop i visited and logos i had made prior to this one. I will show you the steps i went through in order to create the image above (my header) and the Ident which is on my Youtube Channel which is linked last.

I opened up my copy of Photoshop CS6 2018 and created a 1920 x 1080 canvas with a black background. I made the background into a layer and named it Gradient. I chose the Ellipse tool to make a circle, to make is perfect i held Ctrl + Shift in order to make it a perfect circle. i filled it to be white and thus the main circles had been born. The dotted lines were made with the Ellipse tool again, however i changed the line to dotted and made it smaller. I proceeded to add some text in a font i downloaded called Laser84. Laser84 is an 80's style font that is really aesthetically pleasing to me. I added stroke to it and made the stroke 5px large. Next i created a clipping mask to be able to make the circle and the stroke on the font look like a galaxy. To do this, i place the image on the canvas and made it the bigger than the main circle. I right clicked the galaxy image layer and created the clipping mask. I created many versions of the logo using differing images.

I also created my Media Eye-dent. To do this i used two programmes Adobe After Effects CS6 2018 and Adobe Premier Pro CS6 2018.

First of all I downloaded the Saber plugin for Ae for the fire effect. I created some flare for the background by using the particle effect, moving it to the bottom right-hand-side of the screen and changed the settings of the particles so they would float and spread them out. Please note that the type of particle was shaded sphere. Then i coloured them a nice fiery orange colour. The reason i chose orange is because it links to the name of my media productions company, IGNITE being the verb to ignite a fire. I then imported a transparent PNG file of the logo into the composition. Please note a transparent image is going to be easier to use when doing this as you wont have to keylight the background.

Next I added the Saber plugin to my logo. The style of effects had a really wide choice, however i found the fire choice and applied it. I changed the layer it would effect to the logo and toned down the brightness of the flames as you could not really see the words in the logo. The actual fire effect was also altered as the fire interfered slightly with the parts of the logo, linking things that should not be linked. After the effects had been changed to my preferences I added the logo again, this was to allow the fire effect to fade out when the logo faded in. I added keyframes from the two second mark to the three second mark to make the fire take time to fully form and slowly disappear. After that had been successfully applied I proceeded to add the effect, Venetian Blinds, to the unaffected logo to make it fade in. I changed the width of the blinds to 10 and changed the direction to 45 degrees. I set it so that from the two second mark to the three second mark it would fade into its full form.

Youtube Channel for the Ident

Exam Question LEGO MOVIE POSTERS

The typeface used in the LEGO Movie is a custom one designed specifically for the movie. This therefore allows the audience to familiarize themselves with the font as it is only be seen on the LEGO movie posters. On the poster it is put in the top center and is significantly larger than that of other text on the poster. In the individual posters the actor is put along-side a picture of the character that the viewer of the film will see them play/voice-over. This allows the audience to see and recognise familiar actors they have watched prior to watching this film. Parents will be able to relate to other actors such as Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman and Will Ferrell.

The slogan has been used to appeal to the average LEGO builder. The wording used in the slogan makes is appear if the creators of the film are going to 'assemble' the film on the release date. This relates to the average LEGO builder as they are 'assembling' the LEGO sets. The verb assembling also makes the film stand out compared to other films, as their release date, coming 2018 seems bland.

The images in the posters feature the main and central characters in the center so that movie goers or people that have seen the movie can affiliate themselves with characters in the film and build an emotional bond with them. The figure of each character in the posters also are LEGO character models. This creates a sense of nostalgia for parents watching the film and knowledge that the film is child friendly and won't have serious gore in it. For the children the blocks and the way the characters have been shown in their LEGO models will create a correlation between the things they love to play with on a regular basis and the fun times they have had with individual character, many of them coming from iconic LEGO sets. The scene is also completely made out of LEGO bricks adding to the assembly aspect.

In the ensemble poster, the facial expressions show a lot of what personality each character has. The large majority of characters have a serious face on as if they are about to go to battle. There is one character who stands out though, Emmit. Emmit's face is him looking completely out of his mind scared. This is an effective use of both comedy and it allows the viewer to see aspects of themselves in Emmit. People usually themselves as the nobody, and they want to make a difference. Emmit is that sort of character which we can relate to. He is also placed in the center so we know he is the main character. 

The image on the ensemble poster has an explosion in the background showing Lord Business with an angry expression. The explosion acts as the spectacle of the the poster. The animation of the film provides an element of escapism from the film.