Conventions of a magazine advert

Album adverts are used to promote the album. They feature the basic information on the band, including the name, album name, release date and where it can be purchased.


Adverts are usually found in magazines, newspapers, billboards, internet and even buses etc. The advert would also feature a picture of the band, or a symbol that represents the band.


On some adverts you may also find the ratings of the album, a mini picture of the album so the target audience knows what they are looking for, who the record label is and any awards they may have won for it. All of these conventions come together to entice an audience to buy the album.

Digipak reflection

After many inconveniences and problems I have finally finished my digipak. Although I was not able to take any pictures with the band I was able to compromise and take still images from my video for my front cover. One of the images are not from my music video but I thought it would look effective if I had more than just two images of the boys and that particular image fitted nicely.
I chose Blue as the font colour of my title as it stood out over the red. Also I wanted to make sure the genre was obvious of my band so I made sure the images that I used included their instruments. Overall even though this was not what I had planned I still am confident about it.


My inner tray was inspired by The Arctic Monkeys digipak as I think it matched my genre so I thought I would do my own interpretation. I wanted to use it in black and white to make it look more stylish and attract a 'rock n roll' audience. I wanted to keep it simple as all my other faces are very bold and eccentric.

My next face was the lyric booklet. I struggled with this one the most as my original images of eyes were too blurry and did not look too good once I had finished editing. At this point I decided to scrap my images and use an eye off of the internet as I felt it would work better. I used a kaleidoscope effect on the inside of the eye as I wanted to have all the faces linked together in some way and also with the music video.

The back cover for my digipak was quite straight forward. I tried out many different effects before deciding to use a spiralled background in black, red and white. I decided on using spotify as it is an upcoming music streamer where you would be able to listen to all sorts of music and it is good for promoting bands.

Digipak

I have had a lot of problems in making my digipak as my band members would not meet to take pictures so I have had to improvise. I have had to use some images that were not mine as pictures that I took of an eye were too blurry so I thought it would be best to use an image which would look more professional off of google. I also had to get still images from my music video for my front cover.

Gender representation

For the last two lessons as a class we have looked at gender representation and stereotypes in music videos and then have applied the 5 micro elements to our own music videos. The 5 micro elements are:

1) the use of the body

2)Facial expression

3) Mise-en-scene
4) The gaze

5) How the camera frames the body

I found my music video showed the boys in the video as active, as they are throwing themselves around    

showing their crazy lifestyles and eccentric personalities. However they are also passive because of the activities they have taken part in which the audience can get idea of just from their imagination.

Facial expressions include worn out, tired faces because of them sobering up, coming off of any form of drug they may have taken.

Mise-en-scene in the video is a colourful bedroom, this is the only time any hetrasexual behavior is shown when you see the naked curvy cartoon which can also show their creative side. They are very alternative and do not follow the crowd as you can see from their 'out there' outfits such as colourful jumpers and suits. 

The gaze in my music video is always focused around alcohol and drugs, which goes against the male stereotype of focusing on women.

From Point Of View shots again you can see their crazy drug life and alcohol consuming lifestyles. Close ups show the focus on the boys face making him look addicted.