Group meetings - Miss Georgiou

Group meetings are vital to carry out because it gives everyone in the group an idea of what they need to create for their project the next time the group go out to film, this way filming is done efficiently and quickly by all group members. They are also needed as they save time from people in the group one by one trying to communicating through one another, as we arranged them in the lesson, we were all able to say what days we could and couldn't do for filming or editing when me and my group were in school. The group meetings helped construct our production because we were able to discuss and agree with everyone's individual ideas to incorporate into our groups media product, this means that everyone after each meeting had a better understanding of what we needed to film and why the certain idea would shape the rest of the narrative. The strength that me and my group had was the amount of communication we had for one another was very good, as we were all friends beforehand we all communicated a lot, but with this group it would give me and my group a focus point when we were talking with one another about the work we needed to do. If I could change anything, it would be to have one meeting where would talk about the narrative of the media product as at the beginning I was slightly confused at what we needed to create, so a meeting outlining the whole narrative of the video would have been very good.

I have now learnt, after carrying out group meetings, that they are essential when it comes to creating the production for a group and are very beneficial to all those group members that participate as they give everyone a clear understanding of where the production is going. I have learnt that they save everyone time when filming as the group can get it done quickly and efficiently without having much hesitation as everyone is clear on what the group needs to do. I think me and my group worked exceptionally well as we were fine with communicating with one another and there was no tension or friction once in the group. If I had to do anything differently then it would be just to clear up what the narrative was in the earlier stages because as I said before, I was confused on the narrative and didn't have much of an indication of where it was going, I did ask and was told but I think in hindsight I should've asked earlier than I did.

Photo Shoot - Miss Miller

For our media project of making a music video, me and my group will also be creating other products as well as the music video to help further our knowledge of the music industry and how they're marketed towards audiences. To do this, me and my group will be taking pictures as well as filming our music video so that me and my group can create a magazine advert as well as a digipak to advertise our artist. It's very important that when taking the pictures for your magazine advert and digpak, you make them as varied as possible, take several pictures of the same positioning and lighting and you will have a choice of what you think looks better, it also helps when making the digipak to take several completely different pictures so that your digipak looks much more realistic as they will be 6 completely different pictures molded into one digipak so using the same picture with slight changes to body language and costume won't look good at all and looks like the same image being copied and pasted 6 times with minor tweaks.

I have taken a picture of this image as i think that there should be several images that show the artist in a direct mode of address. I plan to use this is as a piece of artwork for the digipak. It's conventional to the indie genre as the artist can be seen holding a guitar which is a very iconic instrument in that particular genre, and the environment around him is an urban environment which could mean this is where the artist grew up. What i like about the picture is the fact that the artist is looking directly at the camera while rested against the wall, the picture is zoomed out in comparison to the others which means editing this photo will be a bit more easier. The audience will build a relationship with the artist because as mentioned before, the artist may be saying he came from a poor, urban environment, as this is a digipak artwork photo, it means that fans who purchased the digipak will understand the artist and his background in further detail which enables the target audience to relate to the characters.

I have taken a picture of this image as I think it clearly demonstrates an understanding of the indie genre conventions. I plan to use the picture taken here as the magazine advert for my artist as well as the front cover of the digipak. The picture is conventional to the genre due to the artist holding a guitar in his hand which shows he is talented to his audience, and that he is looking further than the camera, he is looking in that direction but is looking beyond the camera which further connotes that he is looking into the future of his career rather than his own past. I like this picture as it demonstrates the genre conventions clearly, this was also in my plan that the artist would look like this so I had envisioned it would look a lot like this. The audience build a relationship with the artist because it shows that he is troubled with his past to the point that he doesn't even want to look back at all his memories even the happy ones, he just wants to focus on his career which makes the audience respect the artists songs because they understand he is giving it his all.

I captured this picture because it allows the audience to further build up a relationship with the artist. I plan to use this as the disc picture in the digipak for the fact the artist is in the centre of the frame. The picture is conventional to the genre as again the audience see the iconography of the guitar in the artists hands as well as the fact he wants the digipak to be intended as a personal album to all his fans and his target audiences. I like this one because it shows we tried to vary the angles of the pictures and to try and get a good number of shots as different as they could be so that me and my group had a choice of all the pictures we all took. The audience are able to build up a relationship with the artist because it looks as though the artist in this picture is sitting down with the guitar looking straight at the audience in the face, almost as if the entire album will be like this, the artist telling the audience his personal experience and his own rise to fame, the audience interpret this and understand the album is a personal message from the artist to his fans.


This image was taken due to the relationship between the digipak name. I plan to use this as another picture in the artwork for the digipak as it doesn't show much about the artist. I believe this is conventional as it has direct correlation with our artist as it shows the artists past and some of the troubles he had to go through which in this case means he hasn't got much money and struggles to earn any, this shows a deeper meaning behind the photo which is rather depressing, dark and depressing themes are characteristics of the indie genre as audiences like those controversial themes that artists try and display in their work. I think the image itself is very stylised as the blur is used effectively to show the importance and significance of the photo as well as conveying the idea that the artist himself struggled when he started his career, in short, this picture is quite unique which is the reason why i like it. The audience will build up a relationship with the artist because they will respect the deeper meaning behind the photo which the artist is trying to achieve as well as the fact he is telling the audience some of his stories of how he got out of his harder part of life which they will see as empowering as he was able to achieve so much for himself.

When taking photos for the digipak and magazine advert, i felt that one thing i did particularly well was getting the focus right on the camera so that the pictures looked clear as well as angling it so it didn't look slanted as this would give the audience a wrong impression. I felt that when taking these photos i struggled with keeping the frame just to the wall and not anything else in the background due to the angle of some of the shots, one that I'm referring to is the one photo i said i'll be using as the magazine advert as well as the digipak cover photo. These photos give the artist an indie representation because he follows most of the conventions in all of the photos he appears in, like the iconography of the guitar shows he is a talented musician in the indie genre which the target audience will like as this is his debut album in the industry. Me and my group will use these photos when making our magazine advert as well as the digipak for our artist because they all show variation within each shot, this then makes the the digipak look unique because the same exact angle used twice for 2 individual pictures may look boring, showing a variation makes the digipak look a lot more professional to a real life digipak.

Individual Magazine Advert - Miss Miller

Magazine adverts are used by many artists and their record labels so that the artists audience knows about the artists upcoming album or next single that will be coming soon. They help promote the artist because audiences of the artists genre might be reading a magazine they prefer and will see an advertisement for the artists new album, the helps the audience remember the artist as it may feel like they're being constantly reminded to buy this artists new album. Me and my group were given the task of creating our own individual magazine adverts to promote our artist, to create this, I used Photoshop to create the magazine advert. The reason why I used this software was because of the variety of different options there are available to me, and you can edit each individual element of the advert through the use of photoshop's layer system where you click the layer you want to edit and start tweaking the colour, the size and even the background of the image. To come up with my idea of the magazine advert I had to look at two examples, firstly I used the artist Jake Bugg, this was appropriate as me and my group were doing a video about one of his songs called "Two Fingers", the example was of the same genre but completely different artist called Ed Sheeren. From these two adverts I took as much inspiration as I could from both and applied these inspirations to my own magazine advert and started drawing it up on pencil and paper as a rough idea of what I wanted, this rough plan was then used as a building block of all the pictures me and my group took for filming and to try and replicate the plan of our adverts to the best of our ability.

For my individual magazine advert i tried to use colour quite effectively for the whole advert. An example of this is the black and white image of the artist and his surroundings with the use of orange, black and white being used for the text throughout the magazine advert, this includes songs, album name, artist name and reviews from specific sources. The effect of the colour for the image is to show that the artist sees things for what they are and the black and white colours are to show his music is dark but additionally shows that they are hopeful for the future as conveyed by the white in the image. The use of orange is to show that the artist stands out from this convention in the indie genre and that his music, while it applies to indie convention can be original for some audiences tastes. The connotation is tried to achieve was that though the artist has had a depressing life at the beginning, he tells his story in a new and original way as the colour orange stands our from the rest of the advert and the other font colours like the black and white.

I have attempted at including as many conventions as possible for the indie genre for my magazine advert. Some indie conventions I have used are the artist wearing dark clothing, the artist holding their preferred instrument, the location of the advert is in an urban environment and the artists hair hasn't got a particular style, the black and white colour I mentioned before is also a convention of the indie music genre. This illustrates that my artist is an indie artist as he follows most of the conventions of an indie artist, this means audiences will instantly associate him with the indie genre because he follows so many of the genre's conventions. The connotation of the advert shows that the album is very personal to him, black and white represent the past, or the past of my artists life, the instrument shows that he is talented in his specific field of expertise, the hair not being styled means he wants his audience to see his true appearance for this album.

The image I have used for the magazine I think is appropriate for the fact that the artist is trying to appeal to the indie genre. The image shows the artist in an urban area while he is resting on the wall, he is leaning on the wall with one leg and the guitar in his hands looking straight at the camera. The image shows that the album the magazine advert is advertising is personal to the artist as the urban area conveys that this is the area he is brought up in, the poster further demonstrates this idea as the artist is looking straight at the camera which means he's looking straight at the audience member who is reading the magazine, making them feel the artist is trying to communicate to them. This appeals to the indie audience because they like songs that are deep and philosophical, these hidden connotations of the poster are something they would want to understand more by listening to the songs the artist produces.

The layout and design of the poster I have tried to keep as clear as possible so that the target audience aren't filled with tons of information. At the top of the poster, the name of the artist can be seen in bright orange letters, "presenting his debut album" is in black with the album name written below it in white, "features is also in black and the songs of the album are written in white, and finally just below the songs are the reviews from the two music magazines including the rolling stone with 5 stars and Q magazine with also 5 stars. This appeals to the audience because the two reviews hold the album in high regards, this means that audiences are more likely poster doesn't look convoluted, it has the right amount and length of detail for an advertisement while also generating more buzz around the album as people want to know more about it which creates more awareness of the album.The connotation behind the layout of the poster shows that the artist doesn't pay attention to much of the titles he receives and prefers that his target audience just listen to the music instead of opinions.

The font or typography that has been used for the poster I have produced are varied to make it seem more realistic to an actual magazine cover and the indie genre. The fonts were all created for the indie genre purposes, one font that i used for the artist's name almost looks hand written with a highlighter, a font that is almost like a stencil on the wall in white and the songs looks handwritten with a pen . I have varied up the fonts on the magazine advert so that all the information doesn't blend in together which makes my poster look a lot more professional, these fonts are different for the purposes of making sure that each bit of information is different so the audience do not become confused. The target audience will appreciate the font as the typography illustrates that the artist is an original addition to the genre which would want to make the audience buy the album so that they can understand what makes the artist so original, they also understand the album is personal to him because it looks handwritten which means the audience are lead to believe that the artist wrote the album poster himself.

The language of the poster was kept very simple as was planned from my rough draft of the advert. The language of the poster is only basic information about the songs on the album, the album name, the fact it's his debut album the date of release, the songs on the album, and the name of the artist as well as the reviewers of the album. The language has been kept simple and to a minimum as to not overwhelm the audience with so much information but to make sure that they don't forget much of the important parts, for example it's the artists debut album yet he had already got 5 stars from two music magazines, making the audience think he will be impressive. However the limited amount of information keeps the audiences anticipation up because they want to know specifically what the artist does and the music he makes, the mystery behind it makes them want to buy the album so that they can see what all the hype is about for the artist.

Whilst using photoshop, there was one tool that i always seemed to struggle with which was the cropping tool for the pictures, this was a problem as most of my pictures were taken from a landscape perspective and needed to be cropped so that it would fit into a poster like the one above. To overcome this obstacle I simply practiced with the tool, however I still found it was tricky as sometimes photoshop may not even decide to crop it, and learned that making another layer then putting the photo into that layer and then cropping it works fine and that picture can then be dragged into the magazine advert layer and the original picture will look smaller. Putting in the black and white filter was easy enough as it was just a simple filter layer you could put over the layer to render it black and white, another strength was choosing the right colour as i compared pinks with blues to purples until i finally selected orange as my colour because my thinking was that it stood out from the picture in the background and was very clear to read. The heavy inspiration I took was Ed Sheeran's own magazine advert as he also favoured the colour orange so that it stood out from the rest, and Jake Bugg was a very heavy inspiration as the two artists which my artist and Bugg himself, both rest on a wall with a guitar in their hands. I feel as if I have effectively followed my plan for the advert as the artist in my plan is in a similar position, however there were many influences that made me change from following the plan exactly like the complete lack of colour in the fonts was changed as it looked dull.

In conclusion, I believe that my magazine advert mostly conforms to the indie genre conventions because my advert tries to implement a lot of the conventions you would see an indie artist use, for example, the use of the guitar associates him with the indie genre which allows our target audience to appreciate his music. I believe it does appeal to our target audiences which is the indie audience, i think this because they would recognize all the conventions of an indie artist, they well then start listening to the artist as he is part of the genre that they all listen to and prefer over other genres of music. It will promote our artist because the advert will act as part of a constant reminder to audiences to get the album so that they may understand why it has been getting so much attention.

Final Magazine Advert

Based on feedback i have received from my target audience, I have now updated the magazine advert so that it appeals to them further. I blurred out the background where the picture included trees, the trees didn't blend well with the brick wall so i blurred it out so it looks unimportant. The next change i made was adding a tint to the black and white effect so that it had a bit of colour other than the orange while it still relates back to the indie genre.