How my media project conforms to particular social

groups

• Ok so my media project was based around the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any form of a typical and dominant female music magazine available out there to compete against the raging boyish music mags and the hardcore rock genre such as kerrang that seems to be sweeping out nation alongside R&B hip hop magazine such as VIBE. So I chose to create my own interpretation of what I felt was conventional of a typical female music magazine and I used the term ‘Indie’ as my set genre.

So what exactly is ‘Indie’?

• “In popular music, independent music, often shortened to indie music or “indie”, is a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels and an autonomous, Do-It-Yourself approach to recording and publishing. Independent labels have been known to strive for minimal influence on the artist they represent, avoiding the artist-cultivating behaviour of many major labels”

• The ‘Indie’ style seems to be either two styles, such as loud colours and patters such as stripes, stars, heart ect… or neutral colours, jeans, hoodies, converse and again patters and images are used in their textile clothing along with loud hair either in colour (red, black, brilliant blondes and oranges ect) or big bushy hair that makes a statement with big accessories. This is a genre quite close to home to me where I have been through that stage with the nig hair and colours and patterns and it is a common stage during older teenage years.

So let’s look at some of the photo shoots...

Subtle

Plain Bold clothing

Musical instrument

Natural poses

Individuals

Bold messy hair NO make-up

Natural

Feminine

relaxed

Indie

Patterns within clothing Textures

Soft

Poise Confidence

Mise-en-scene/Clothing • First off my mise-en-scene is very plain

as I wanted to keep my images of the girls very much the main feature. This very plain background also keeps the colours within the photographs seem fresh and vibrant. Their clothing clothes tend to keep to the idea of casual jeans and a top but in their own individual ways they have selected and put forward their own personalities in the colours within their tops and especially within the converse shoes that Gina has on that show a cheeky side to her as well as this subtle and relaxed person. They all seem to show timid characteristics but at the same time shows a bubbly personality that seems to shine through in these selected photographs. They also have the typical teenager look about them which is really what I was aiming for.

Facial expression• To relate to my target audience my

models really brought their personalities through and I thought that Becky especially shone through in her facial features when being photographed I asked her to just be herself and jump around like any normal teenage girl would do. Her smile won me over in some of her shots where you can see the crazy and bubbly fun side to any typical teenager. This brings hope, freshness, fun, energy and personality into the magazine where they are inspiration and roles models for young teenagers out there. Her facial expressions include that of a cheeky fun-loving teenager that just wants to have fun in life by showing off that ‘cheesy grin’ Their postures are very much that of a natural pose where they are simply just being their fun bubbly self and letting their true colours shine on through creating this exciting new atmosphere where they are very relaxed around a camera and not too posed like in most magazines, this is a young feminine teenage mag looked at for inspiration.

Stereotypes?• I feel that in these photo shoots my models have presented

themselves as very stereotypical young teenagers who like to have fun and are a bit on the cheeky side which gives the sense of my target audience. They also shows off this very feminine look about them in the way they present themselves as very poised and subtle with feminine features such as their pink lips, bright eyes, flowing hair (although different lengths) and generally shows through as a very typical girly girl who loves music, clothes and fun showing their wild sides. Their clothing shows very typically feminine colours through such as the cheeky red, subtle whites which denotes the typical innocence of a teenagers years. Gina also shows the typical modern and fashionable clothing range where she is wearing the very rich red converse shoes that many teenagers seem to be attracted to with this very cute and young panda beanie knitted hat which also gives this raw innocence.

Lets get technical!In many of my photographs there was unwanted scenery such as the side of the wall or the door frames and flooring that just distracted the eye from the main model as the frames are what kept the models feet and body in position as such but I did not necessarily want my audience to see this so in order to make it appear that my models were holding their positions and were on a plain white canvas, I have to take the original image and crop the part of the photograph that I wanted to keep (the model) and place her in an undistorted plain white background canvas and then the minor fragments that still managed to appear through I simply erased. I did all my photographic editing and exotic fonts in Photoshop and illustrator. I could also change any features that I felt was necessary such as I liked the pose in one photography but loved the look on her face on another...Photoshop gave me the change to crop her face from one image onto another by using the pen tool.

Before After

See the face has changed!

The black banner has gone

Depth of field?In some of my experimental photographs during this particular shoot I chose a midrange depth of field where the model is in focus but her long draped white shirt seems to be distorted where it blends into the background to make it feel like she is popping out of the page at the audience. This gives it a fun touch and also feels more like a 3d magazine rather than a flat canvas being worked upon. You can particularly see it in this image. This was also partly why I chose to use a plain white background to photography my model against which also helped to distort the eyes as the lighting was rather bright against the white background and shirt distorting the two into one. You only realise this is her shirt when it begins to fade darker where the shadows of her body form them or where the fabric creates ruffles and folds.

Camera work• I chose to stage both my photo shoots

against the same white wall and also where I had the most natural light so that any facial features and colours will be highlighted and exaggerated. My photographs, I always seemed to have taken them from the face on as this gives a much more front on effect when wanting the model to connect directly through the facial features and expression to the audience. You can see that in some photographs particularly Gina’s where she is lead on the floor with the acoustic guitar I had to sit down with her and shoot her side onwards so that I covered her whole body and got her to fit within my frame creating a mid shot effect rather than a close up like I did with Becky who sits on my font cover where the audience is most likely going to be viewing her face rather than her body and angles and such, yet I also took side views of Becky for experiments and a different approach to see which would work better in connecting to their audience. I felt personally that the side view of her body but her face being front al and in a mid shot worked the best.

Mid shot from sitting down at eye level view

Face is front on but taken from a side view and shot.

Full frontal face on shot and more of a close up to look at facial expression

Fonts?

As you can see I did rather alot of experimentations with different fonts for the front of my magazine and showed them all together and also some are in lower case and some in capitals just to get the whole overall effect and what worked best in which style font. I designed my title before beginning my magazine so I used a very typical feminist colour font just to give me another idea of the colour scheme I could maybe go in the direction of. Some of the styles came from an inspirational advert and typical females make-up brand known as max-factor but after looking at the style again it didn’t seem to work as well in my name eden and give off the strong artistic effect that I was hoping and aiming for. The name eden came from my own name which I felt was unique, natural and feminine which worked well as a new magazine title.

My initial idea and inspiration

Chosen font

To create this style font I simply created another font like a drop shadow within Photoshop and placed one over the other in separate layers in case I wish to change or edit some part of the font at any given time.

I also chose two typical feminine colour choices which give off a good vibe and directly attract my target audience at their level and also these feminine colours also complement one another in the subtle way that they clash enough to see the colour change between them also giving my title this 3D edge and professional look.

It’s fun, feminine, informs my audience of the new brands name and gives off exactly who my target audience is mostly aimed at and it certainly stands out from the rest of my plain and simple text. It makes a bold statement also stamping over the models head which I had to create another layer to do so.

To create a even more magazine styled main feature font and its 3D edge I also added a drop shadow behind the image and behind the different layers which creates this look as if the title is standing out and embossed form the page.