Magazine advert analysis

Our next task was to design a magazine advert for our music song. To help us we decided to analysis some magazine adverts of other songs looking at the positives and negatives. This would give us a better understanding of magazine adverts such as how they should be designs, layered out and what information to have on them.

Bruno Mars- Lazy song Magazine Advertisement

This is a magazine advert of Bruno Mars song ‘Lazy Song’. The magazine is bright as the editors have chosen the colours orange and yellow making the magazine stand out from any other magazine attract the audience of the readers. At the bottom of the magazine it has the words, ‘Most influential artist of this decade’-MTV. This is a type of celebrity testimonial only it is the biggest music company and not a celebrity. This is very effective because such a positive comment will attract good word of mouth and will convince buyers to buy the album because one of the biggest companies in music recommends it and not just a magazine or newspaper. The release date at the top of the album gives the readers of the magazine information of the release date making it more convenient for them. The picture of the person in bed relates to the song name ‘Lazy Song’ as most people would relate the word lazy to a bed. However I think the advert has very little information about the song making the advert look very simple and boring. Also I don’t personally think the colours of Orange and yellow will fit into the theme of the magazine and would look out of place.

Firewind- World on fire


This is the magazine advert for ‘Fire wind- World on fire’. Looking at the advert we can see it is very sci-fi type of advert with the picture in outer space with the picture of the world on fire. This relates to the title of the song ‘World on fire’ and is very eye catching. The black background with the red/orange flames catches the eye of the audience and makes you as the audience stare at the picture. The Advert also had about the song, which album it was from and where it can be purchased from. We thought that the white writing was very effective on black background of the advert making the details of the music album clear and easy to read. Because if this it made the writing stand out from the rest of the advert. However we thought the font and colour of the title of the song ‘Fire Wind’ was not attractive enough and did not stand out. This would result in the audience remembering the picture but not the name of the song. I thought the white on a background was very effective to attract the audience and make the important details clear and easy to understand. Looking at the colours used, I think the age group is 18-22 years old but I don’t think the advert makes this clear.

Wretch 32- Wretchrospective


This is a magazine advert of the rapper ‘Wretch 32’. The advert is very light and I think the colour white and different shades of blue go together very well. The advert has the artist as the main picture making it very easy for the audience to recognize what the advert is selling and who it is buy. At the bottom right corner of the advert it has all the different music companies that the music can be bought from such as ITunes and HMV. Yet again we see the white writing about the information about the songs on a background, making the information clear and easy to read. I thought the layout of the advert was very catchy and the picture of the flats and the birds in background as well as the lines across the advert gave it a ‘cool’ and ‘artistic’ look to the advert and meets there target audience very well which I think is Teenagers. However the fact the artist himself is on the middle of the advert, I personally don’t think it is as effective as it could be because Wretch 32 is a young rapper and not very well known. Having a picture of him won’t attract a huge audience because he is a developing artist. Also I think the white writing about all the valuable information about the song sound be bigger and more attractive to see.

28/11/22

Today we started the blog evaluation.

We're also going through the blog checklist and completing anything that we haven't done on the blog, we completed our CD Cover analysis of the CD cover we made a few days ago...

We are also doing an analysis on a magazine advert, which will then tick off everything on the blog checklist we have to do on the blog.

Equipment that we used

Video Camera

This is the Canon video camera we used to shoot our video. This video camera was very useful because it was small and compact but at the same time flexible. The fact the video camera was small and compact made it much easier to carry the camera to different locations and switch angle shots easily. Also the fact it was small and light weighted compared to other cameras abled us to film in unique angles such as a low angle shot, high angle shot and places giving us a unique shot which we wouldn’t be able to if the camera was bigger and weighed more. In addition to this, the camera had a good zoom making it easier to go from a wide long shot where the background was very clear to a close up. Another advantage was that the camera was very easy to use and had a good battery life when fully charged.

The disadvantage to camera was that because the camera was small and compacted meaning it was delicate and was easily broken. Also I felt the camera was not weather resistant making it hard to film in the rain or bad conditions. The fact that we live in Manchester, a city which has a lot of rain didn’t help and interrupted many of our filming days. Also the fact that the screen was small on the camera made it hard to see in detail what he was filming and so we couldn’t be 100% sure if there were anything irrelevant in the scene such as a car driving past in the background. I also felt when we did hand held shots on the video camera, the video camera was too sensitive and was shaking more than we expected meaning our footage looked unprofessional.

Overall we thought we had a good camera which abled us to film in the way we wanted to and the fact it was small made it easier to transport to other locations. The video camera was very easy to use and to transfer the video footage to the computer.

Tripod

This is the tripod we used to attach our video camera onto to get a steady shot without the camera shaking in our hands. This equipment was very useful because it allowed us to shoot different types of shots such as the panning shot and crab shot. On our first day of filming, we didn’t think the tripod was relevant and important and proceeded to our location without it. After viewing our footage in the editing room, we felt the footage was to shaky and looked very unprofessional. Because of this we revisited the location and filmed the scene again using a tripod making our new footage look good and professional.

The disadvantage to the Tripod was it took a lot of time and effort to adjust the tripod to the position you wanted it move. Also I felt that the tripod restricted some of our shots because the tripod wouldn’t turn as much as we wanted to. Also the tripod was big in size and was a problem to carry around. Another disadvantage is that the clips on the tripod holding the legs of the tripod in place are very weak and broke twice when in filming. This put the camera in risk and disturbed our filming timetable.

Overall I thought the Tripod was an excellent choice of equipment that we used. It made our video footage look professional and abled us to a variety of shots using this.

Green Screen

Green screen technology is modern equipment which is used from Hollywood films to the weather forecast. If you shoot on the green screen with a single colour (green), it allows you to make that colour transparent and replace the colour green with another image selected by yourself. In our video we used green screen often to change our background into a white plain background with the letter ‘E’ on the side which stands for ‘Example’.

This was very useful because when using this, it made our music video look professional as real video music video use this. We enjoyed playing with the green screen as we could insert any background that we wanted onto the green screen.

However I would have to say it was hard to remove all of the green of the green screen and we found it hard to manage the shadow which was being reflected onto the green screen by the studio lights.

Problems we faced within our group..

Because there where four members in our group there where a clash of idea’s and had disagreements on what transaction or editing was to be used in our video. This made it hard to make quick progression and complete our music video. I thought this happened because all four members including myself (Jubil) were individuals who where strong minded and had different taste. Because of this there were disagreements within the group not because there was no teamwork or co-operation in the group but because everyone wanted the best for the group and the video. Because of this we decided to take a professional approach to this and elected members to be in charge of different sections. We decided Giuseppe should be in charge of the music and myself (Jubil) being in charge of the blog work. This way there would be less disruption and we could move and finish the video quicker. However we all decided that everyone would still help and contribute to the group and put a 100% effort to get the best grade possible! This made us a stronger group and made us more determinded.

23/11/11 - What we did?

For the past few days we have been editing our music video using the computer software Final Cut pro. We epically concentrated on adding effects and transactions to our music video. We did this to make our music video more professional by making our video have continuous editing in order for the audience not to detect a change in the scene.

Also after filming our scene on the green screen, we edited the footage on Final Cut Pro. We made the green background transparent and added a white background with the letter ‘E’ on the side. We did this because on most of Example’s video this is done and we wanted to show continuity.

Furthermore, whilst Giuseppe and I (Jubil) were working on the music video, Gasim was busy creating and editing the magazine and album cover of music album. This way more work was being completed faster. Gasim was editing the album cover by changing the brightness and colour of the initial picture to make it as noticeable as possible to attract customers attention and add relevant information to the album cover such as the name of the artist and when it will be coming out.

Filming day 17/11/11

Today we did some more filming of Jubil in the green screen lip syncing for the stay awake video.

Giuseppe was filming, and me and Emmanuel did some blog work.

photos of filming day 17/11/11

Here are some picture from how the filming went and how we set up the green screen outside:


(Giuseppe on camera filming)


(Jubil on Green Screen)

Because the studio was occupied we decided to make the most of our time and set up a green screen outside to shhot our music video.

Time schedule Plan

This is a rough timeline we had created at the start of the course. We knew timing would be crucial to finish the music video and the blog on time. To help us with this we created a rough time line to give our group an idea of time and what must be done. This gave us huge help in making sure we are on task and on time and if we did fall behind, as we already have many times, we knew more hours outside Media lessons would be needed to complete the tasks.

15/11/10- What we did?

After looking at the opening minute of our music video completely edited on the computer using the software Final Cut Pro, we decided some of the scene’s where not as good as we thought it would be. To be more precise, we thought our establishing scene of our music video, which was shot on the city centre, was too shaky and the panning of the shot was too obvious. Because of this we decided to reshoot the scene again by going to the location (Top floor of Andale car park) and filming it again. We reviewed the new shot on the camera and were happy with it. We felt the new footage we shot was much better as there was no shaking as we used a Tripod and the panning was more professional.

We also decided to film again the lip synching against the wall of all members of our group. This is because we thought our lip synching did not match the music as well as it could do and we thought some of the music we lisped to be slightly wrong timing. This is the reason we decided to re-film this and to make it look more professional. Because we knew exactly what we were doing and how we were doing it, we was able to film the footage quickly and effectively with the improvements. We saved the music ‘Stay Awake’ on our mobile phones and played it making it easier to lip sink too.

After this we continued working the editing suite, continuing to edit our music video and replacing old footage with the new footage. We were very happy with the progress made so far and even though we are slightly behind schedule, we felt we could work hard and be on track.

Magazine cover analysis

Why we analysed magazine covers?

I analysed various music magazines which are read by millions of music lovers. My advertising in these magazines would cost a lot of money but advertising in these paper would increase the publicity of our music and the video.

We analysed the album cover to get a ‘feel’ of the magazine cover so that we had a better idea to know what kind of advert we had to make to make sure it fit the magazine. We looked particularly the colour tine of the magazine and the content. By having a better idea of the magazine we knew it would give us a better idea of what type of magazine advert we had to produce e.g. tine colour.

Ne-Yo- Take Over

This is a magazine advert of the singer Ne-Yo advertising his new single ‘Mad’. The black suit and white shirt by Ne-Yo is smart, neat and formal. This shows he is rich, wealthy and has a fashion sense. The Advert focuses on the artist making the advert more attractive and easier to spot. The advert uses low depth of field making the audience focus on Ne-Yo and not the background. The white writing makes the title look clear and big. The photo being shot from a low angle makes Ne-Yo look powerful and big.

I thought the low depth of field used in the picture made the audience concentrate on the artist Ne-Yo and not the background. This shows what is most important in the advert and making background burly helped to focus on the artist Ne-Yo.

However I did the fact the tilt used when taking the picture was a mistake. I did not like this because I would of thought the picture would of looked more effective if it was straight. Also the title of the song ‘MAD’ is not very clear making it hard to read.

The target audience of the advert is young girls aged from 16-23. This is because the smart look and the black hat make the artist look good attracting female attention. Because the song is slow and emotional, this will also attract further female attention. I also think the secondary artist would be men aged between 116 – 23. This is because I think the style portrayed by Ne-Yo looking professional, young and wealthy is something that all young men look to do.

Lil Wayne

The magazine cover of the magazine Scratch is of the rapper Lil Wayne. The big picture of Lil Wayne attracts readers to read the magazine. Also the yellow writing of the name of the magazine makes the title clear and noticeable. The ‘Simply the best’ tag at the bottom right of the magazine shoes the readers Lil Wayne is talented at what he does and gives the readers a positive image of him self. He was worn casual clothing by wearing jeans, a top and a zip up coat with a basketball hat. This could represent Lil Wayne expressing how he just an ordinary person as though he is one of us. The white and blue writing is very attractive also.

However we think the facial expression of Lil Wayne being sad doesn’t match the idea the magazine. We also feel there is too much writing on the front cover making it look crowded and packed. We also felt the background was too dark and as a result made it look unattractive.

We think the audiences targeted are 18-25 year olds. This is because the picture of Lil Wayne and the color scheme is not one which you would do to target children or over 40 adults.

Magazine cover

Wiz Khalifa

This is a magazine for the artist Wiz Khalifa’s album Rolling Papers. From looking at the magazine cover the main image is the picture of Wiz Khalifa. This can be very effective if the artist is very popular and recognized easily by the public. This is because the public will see the magazine much easier because of Wiz Khalifa’s photo stand out more effectively than if it was just writing in big words. This will attract a much more readers making more people aware of his new songs and album. The red writing with the white background makes the writing stand out. Also with Wiz Khalifa’s hair in the way of the heading, it will persuade readers to open the magazine and read about it. By just looking at the magazine you notice the face of the artist immediately which suggest the target audience is teenagers and young adults, hence the immature facial expression. The brown jackets fit into the whole picture as the artist front hair is also brown. ‘Hip-hop rookie of the year’ title gives readers who don’t know who Wiz Khalifa is an idea he is famous and talented making them want to read the magazine.

Katy Perry

Katy Perry is on the front cover of the well known Blender magazine. Because Katy Perry is famous and is popular among music fans, this easily to attracts readers into buying this magazine. I think the target audience is mainly music fans but also as primary audience men. This is because of the outfit worn by Katy Perry. This is very clever because it is clear most fans of Katy Perry are females and so a large percent of the sales of the magazines would be by females. However by having an attractive and seducing photo as such, drags male attention to the magazine cover increasing the number of men buying the magazine and so increasing the awareness of the artist song. The pink writing reiterates the female touch to the magazine and makes the magazine cover look attractive. The font is a good size making it easy for readers to read and the white background make the album cover look professional.

CD Cover

CD Cover

For the CD cover we decided to go into the green screen and take some still pictures of all of us sat on a red sofa with alcohol bottles on a table next to us, on the floor and holding some. We decided to take some pictures with Jubil, Emmanuel & Me. And some photos with just me in it by myself.



Here is one of the two final cd overs we are deciding on using:

Lost memory card

We lost our memory card a week or so ago, but we got a new memory card, used a few new more location, now we're back on track again. Giuseppe started editing on the timeline, and we'll be adding more footage that we filmed today onto it.
We filmed today at Whitworth park, we filmed there again because our last shots needed some serious improvements so we decided to write up a plan (shown below) that would make our shots more accurate!
We also did some filming in the green screen, so we can use a picture background for some extra lip syncing.

Planning and Annotating lyrics

This is the lyrics I had annotated so when filming we had what part of the song we were lypsing to and where we were up to. This was very usful becuase it gave us all an idea of the song and where we were up too.

filming day 11/11/11

Today we went to shisha after receiving the email of approval from the shisha bar, We did some filming in the Shisha bar, we also took a still camera to take pictures for the blog and also did some filming in Whitworth park, which was initially one of our ideas at the start.

Here are some pictures from the day...

Filming Day 10/11/11

Today we went to a shisha bar, and attempted to do some filming there, but werent allowed... This really ruined our plans and wasted some time for us so we had a schedule another date to find a different shisha bar we count film at.

But we didnt let the day go to waste, we still made our selves productive and did some filming in whitworth park.

Filming day 09/11/11

Today we where going to go out and film in the evening, to get some building shots at night but we decided not to shoot because the rain. We knew because of this, the camera had a high chance of getting damaged and the shots in the rain would not going with other shots because of the change in weather.

To make the most out of our time today, we decided to start editing our music video so far of Final Cut pro. We did this to get an idea of the music video and not to waste time due to the weather. Aswell as this we also started editing our album cover photo.

Filming day 4

Today we continued filming our music video. Our set today was at a shisha bar, which we had decided on in our planning meeting and after which we went to the park to film further. At the Shisha bar we had to pay £7 for all four of us. All staff was very welcoming for us to film at the shisha bar and helped in every way possible. After filming at the shisha bar we reviewed our footage and felt the lighting was poor and dark. Because of this we added natural night by opening windows and curtains wider making the bar lighter. Because we had revived our footage the first time we as a team were able to save time and money. The second time we did the shoot we were happy with the footage and the lighting of the bar.

After this we went to With-worth Park to continue shooting. We continued filming at the park as planned. However due to repairs to the park we changed location. We thought if we stayed at the location as planned it would not look professional having builders and machines in the background and so moved to the other end of the of the park and continued filming our scene. We were very happy with the amount of filming which was done and the quality of it.

Album Cover Analysis

Drake- Take Care

Drake, one of the biggest Hip-Hop artists in the world released his new song ‘Take care’. The album cover is mainly dark with the artists name in white writing making it stand out. The face of the artist Drake make up the most of the album covers because he is famous and will be recognized quickly and easily. The Parental Advisory is also on the cover making it suitable for the younger generation.

We thought the fact that the album covers not having much writing on the front made the magazine look simple and neat. We also though by putting the white writing on top of the black background made the writing stand out and made it much clearer. We also thought by having the Parental Advisory mark increased sales as parents were positive there was no bad language and nudity in the song or magazine making it suitable for children to read.

However we also did think very little information on the front cover made the album look plain and boring as well. We felt it looked too simple and lacked in information. The dark effect used on the face of the artist Drake, making his face look s mixture of blue and green made it look unrealistic.

I think the target audience is 17-29. But I think this will also appeal to younger and older generations. The magazine is very simple with no additional information.

Example- Stay Awake

The album cover of example ‘Stay Awake’ has a simple cover with a black background with the letter ‘e’ in yellow at the middle of the cover. ‘Example’ is written within the letter ‘e’ with the release date is also written at the bottom. The ‘e’ is linked with the video as the letter ‘e’ is referred to many times in the actual music video.

The black background with the big letter ‘e’ in yellow makes the album cover stand out to the audience. Also the fact that the album cover is simple with not much writing or pictures gives it a different style of cover than the usual album covers in the market.

As a group we thought the colors used made the album cover stand out and thought this was one element that we would consider when designing our own album cover. Also the way the album cover had very little text apart from the artist and the release date made the album cover look neat and tidy. However we that the fact of not having a picture made the album cover look boring and dull and decided that when designing our own album cover we were not going to do this.

As a group we decided that the idea of Tinnie Tempah holding a city in his arms was a very clever idea. This made the cover not only looks good but also made the audience think about the picture. Having a picture within a picture was a good idea and something we would try do when making out own album cover.

Tinnie Tempah- Discovery

Tinnie Tempah’s albums cover for the song ‘Discovery uses a various number of dark colour tones on the album cover. Firstly the font on the top left is not just a standard font of writing but a much more sharper and pointer font making the text more noticeable and attractive. The colours used and the background and the background itself of the stars makes the artist looks as though he is in space. This makes the album cover look adventurous and Sci-fi. The colours used make the album an outer space look making the cover also more attractive and noticeable. We can also see that the picture has been edited very much and different types of effects have been used giving it more of an adventurous look.

However we thought that the whole album cover was too ‘busy’. There were too many colours and editing making the cover, we thought too imaginative.

I think the audience is teenagers and young adults aged between 14 and 22. This is because the album cover looks adventures and creative. Also the genre of the music is one which is more likely to be listened to by a young audience.

Rihanna- We found love

I think with this album cover its target is men aged 14-28. This is because the artist is a very good looking woman as the front cover attracting male buyers. However we also thought that picture was too simple and some buyers would think it would look a little dull and boring. Also the costume of Rihanna is very casual and normal.

The album cover of Rihanna’s- we found love is a simple cover in black and white. The picture is of Rihanna walking down a street looking at the camera. On the bottom right of the album it has the letter ‘R’ and the title of the song. The letter ‘r’ stands for Rihanna. Because she is such a famous powerful artist, most people know what the letter ‘r’ stands for. The black and white effect shows the audience the song is sad and depressing. It gives it an emotional effect to the song as well.


As a group we that the black and white effect gave the album cover an emotion, a connection with the audience. Also we thought the album cover has very simple to do and did not consist of a lot of editing which would save us time and money.

Jay-z- The Blueprint 3

The album cover of Jay-z is a collage of various different musical instruments such as a keyboard; guitar, saxophone etc put all together all in white with a white background. The writing of Jay-z on the top right of the album cover makes it clear to the buyers who the artist of the album is and stands out to a certain extend because the writing is black on a white background. There are also three parallel red, bold lines in the middle of the album cover which could relate to the album name ‘Blueprint3’ which is on the top right corner of the album. Next to the album name are also 3 parallel lines but in black.

As a group we thought the collage of the various music instruments was very clever because it was an image not seen before but also an image which would stay in the mind of buyers. Also the white and red made the album cover look simple but attractive. Also the black writing on the white background made it clear for the buyer to read the text. But mostly we thought how the album cover had a website was a clever idea. This could increase recognition of the website and also the album which we had not seen on any previous album covers.

However we also thought the album cover was to boring by it being mostly white making the album cover not attractive. We also thought it would be hard to recognize what genre of music the album was by looking at the album cover due to all the various instruments in the picture. Also we thought that the choice of text for the name of the artist a bad selection because it was not neat and tidy.

I think the album is targeted at a wide audience. I think there are many songs targeted at certain age groups. This is because of the various instruments on the album cover symbolizing the different tastes of different people and age groups.

Cobra starship- Hot mess

The album cover of Cobra starship is unique and very eye catching. The big writing and the ‘funky’ font of the artist group makes it stand out from the rest and attract the attention of buyers e.g. in a shop. The background of the half naked women will attract buyers but also portray a specific genre of music. The name of the album is placed on the album in a very clever place so that it is seen by everyone. The semi naked woman is biting a sweet which has the album name on it.

However we also thought the picture of thee semi naked women was inappropriate and would not fit into the audience we are targeting for. Also we think due to the picture it would stop many parents from buying the album.

We as a group thought the font of the title was very attractive and the colour made it stand out. We also thought the album name being put on the sweet the women is biting made the album cover and name of the album name memorable.

I think the album is targeted and young adults aged between 18 to 25 year olds. I think the album cover comes out as an high beat, high tempo sings at party’s. Also the font makes the name of the group hard to read and make out. This could be a problem if the group are not well known.

Filming day 03/11/11

Today one of our main characters for our video Guiseppe was off due to ilness, therefore we could not continue filming.

However we still made our day productive! We made a start our CD cover by booking a studio to do our photo for our album cover and continued working on our blog. We also began with the editing the video on Final Cut Pro.

We started the day by taking some photos of Me, Emmanuel & Jubil for our CD cover. Some pictures didnt look too good, But we got the right one in the end!

Here are some of those pictures...

Post production ideas

after all the filming we plan to use some effects.

some of the effects we will use are lighting either to fix some lighting issues or use it to give the video a certain feel to it.

We viewed some of the shots we have filmed and we have decided on what the opening sequence will be and we have decided that our video will have some varying speeds of cuts some will be fast between different scenes to go with when the music speeds up and some will be slower and calmer to relate to the over all feel of the video.

during filming we also took some pictures that will be in the video. some will be related and some images wont be.

Filming Day 2

On our second day of filming which was 31/10/11 we started work in different locations on the first part of the song filming the different scenes in some of our various locations , we chose the location of a brick wall background for the beginning of the song because it makes the characters stand out and allows us to see them clearly , also we chose this because it goes with the stereotype of young people always being on the street which links to the lyrics of the song which talk about "a messed up generation".

this use of the background shows some intertextuality of some different events and story lines relevent in todays climate.