Photography Lighting

Photography Lighting Tutorials

Images explaining different photography techniques;

These are various different tutorials on photography lighting;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maM4dWbK0A0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfqhz-nh4Gc

This tutorial is particularly concerned with portrait photography;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzvHEBm6VZs

Music Journalism

MUSIC JOURNALISM

I think it is essential to look at previous music journalist articles in order to get a feel for the sort of thing I need to include and especially the conventions that are important.

This is a Youtube video of a music journalist explaining what it takes to be a good music critic;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oezn6ZjV2so

Mark Beaumont

Beaumont is a British freelance music journalist he has written in the past and continues to write for establishments including NME and The Guardian. I really like the way he writes and how he reviews bands in particular, he tends to be completely truthful in to what he thinks. 

Examples of Guardian article;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/feb/15/courteeners-anna-indie-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/dec/06/florence-and-the-machine-review

Paul Du Noyer

Paul is another music journalist who has contributed to various different music magazines including; Mojo, Q and NME. He has interviewed artists from Madonna to Mick Jagger, he also has strong connections with Ringo Star and Paul McCartney from The Beatles. Writing history of music for Liverpool and London its safe to say he knows a lot about the industry. 

This is a list of what he has acheived;

http://www.pauldunoyer.com/about.asp

This is a link to his website where there is an archive of all of his music journalism;

http://www.pauldunoyer.com/pages/journalism/index.asp?journalism_Category=Music%20Journalism

Music Photographer Research

NICK PICKLES

Specializing in live music photography, Nick Pickles has won various awards for his work. Providing photos for Disney, Red Bull and the BBC its fair to say he is good at what he does. A lot of his work is used for marketing and to be put in various publications internationally to advertise the band or artist. Nick travels over the country following bands on tour, attending gigs and festivals to provide publications with images. 

Link to his website; 
http://www.music-photographer.co.uk/

Here are some examples of his work;

AMI BARWELL

Ami's work is very rock and roll and has an edgy feel to it, she has been working as a photographer for 13 years and has got a lot of experience in the industry. Not only has she photographed the likes of Blur and Kings of Leon but she has done commercial work with Shockwaves and Wella. Being only young she has her very own clothing range with Ben Sherman. She has worked with major record labels such as NME and Vogue.  

A link to her website;

http://www.musicphotographer.co.uk/

Examples of her work;

I really like both of these photographers work, they produce amazing music photographs and evidently their work is recognized world wide. 

Draft Article/Flat Plans

The latest indie band to come on the scene The Strings who are being compared to ‘Alt-j’ the multi award-winning band. Rocking up in his Vans and mustard jumper you can tell that he belongs to the new hipster craze, he gets everyone laughing with his sarcastic ‘witty’ comments lead singer Jon comes in to tell us how crazy the last year has been.

Coming from Kilkee a small town in the South of Ireland the boys are no doubt overwhelmed by the storm they are causing in the music industry. Growing up in a small town Jon tells us how different it all is “Well shit all happens in Kilkee and going from that to the constant media attention here is mental”

They are about to embark on their very first headlining tour in the UK with three of the dates already sold out. Smiling as always Jon says, “It’s mental that last year we had just finished college and now we’re being recognized in the streets”

Jon explains to us that the whole thing has been so overwhelming and how he hasn’t seen his family in over 3 months. “Its hard because we’ve been travelling and doing small gigs all over the UK and I never get chance to visit my family” Being only eighteen he’s hardly old enough to even drink the Desperados in his hand, never mind deal with being away from family.

“In a way this is my right of passage, I’m getting to travel to new places everyday with my best friends, cant think of anything better” Its nice to know that the fame hasn’t gone to his head and that the band is enjoying the moment rather than taking it all for granted.

We get him to spill the beans on what happens on tour, being four teenage boys its bound to have some naughtiness involved. “What happens on tour, stays on tour” he laughs. “No but seriously we don’t do anything too crazy. However if its just me and Jack (White-Bassist of The Strings) we often get ridiculously drunk and wake up in the middle of nowhere thinking what the fuck happened last night”. Being only eighteen you expect these sorts of things to happen to you, especially with the amount of freedom, its gives them time to find themselves.

‘We weren’t expecting the reaction we got from the album’ Jon explains that they were not expecting the public to be quite so accepting and in fact the y were expecting it to be a flop as there are so many new and upcoming indie bands at the minute. They have already been compared to the likes of Alt-j which is incredible in itself.

FLAT PLANS

Double Page;

Contents page;

Front cover;

Target Audience

I have done a survey monkey to get an idea of who my target audience will be.

This shows that my primary target audience is females however there is not that many more females than males so I need to ensure that I have appealed to both audiences. For example making sure that the colour palette and main icon is not aimed at one sex and would attract both a male and female audience.

From this I can see that the main audiences that I need to target is social classes B to D, E and A are in the minority and will not be the main audience I need to appeal to. The sort of thing I need to include to appeal to these social classes is particularly the price of the magazine because people in band B are more likely to have more disposable income than band D.

From this I can tell that my main audience will be white British this doesn't mean that I shouldn't include things that will be a for all ethnicity's.

This shows that a lot of the people that read music magazines are interested in the rock and indie genre, this is what I know best about and therefore this is the genre I am going to do for my own music magazine.

It is obvious from this that the convention my audience will like to see is the main image, this is because if you know that the artist or band on the front then you are more likely to be interested in the rest of the magazine and therefore you will buy it. The second most popular was layout because the more layered and specific the more aesthetically pleasing it will be for the audience.

Audience Profiling

AUDIENCE PROFILING

Before I begin to plan my music magazine I first need to work out who the primary target audience will be because as Hall & Holmes said; 

“Any media text is created for a particular audience and will usually appeal most to this particular target audience” (Hall and Holmes, 1998). 

In order to be able to profile my audience successfully it is vital that I know them thoroughly, if I don’t do this correctly they won’t be drawn to my product and therefore the magazine will not be successful.

There are different ways of categorizing an audience; I will consider representation theory, social class and the Uses and Gratification theory.

Magazine institutions/creators pitch to two main types of audiences a mass audience or a niche audience.

MASS AUDIENCE: Mass audience are mainstream audiences that consume the mainstream and popular culture magazine (Marxist would say that this audience is mainly made up of ‘working class’) such as Top of the Pops and Q magazine.

High culture in contrast is associated with broadsheets, opera, ballet, classical music and BBC 4, so music magazines that would cater for this audience would include Classical FM magazine and Opera magazine.

NICHE AUDIENCE: A niche audience is a lot smaller than a mass audience but usually highly influential e.g. Marxist would define upper class/middle class who controlled the media may wish to see ‘high culture’ programs leading the release of BBC Four for those people that wish to hear/see artistic high culture programs. Niche audience don’t have to be this group however, they can be any small dedicated group who advertisers feel are worth targeting/marketing products for. Examples being; NME, Kerrang (Heavy metal) and Source magazine (hip hop).

Audience Profiling

Before magazine institutions create their magazine they must first profile their audience and take in to account AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS (class/age/gender/economic status and geographical location) along with their viewing preference/needs:

 Meaning they have to think about the following before developing a magazine…

  

    1) What social class will the primary target audience fall under?

2) What gender is the primary target audience?

3) What age will the primary target audience be?

4) What nationality will the primary target audience be?

5) What values do the primary target audiences have?

6) Audience appeal - what will the primary target audience be looking for in a magazine?

7) What music/fashion/lifestyle will they be looking for?

Magazine institutions have to think about how they can represent their primary target audience the best through media language e.g. star vehicles, lexis, iconography, shot types, mise-en-scene, mastheads, colours, typography etc.

KEY REPRESENTATION THEORY

 All of the following theories are taken in to account when profiling, representing and pitching to the audience.

Class:

A way of identifying a target audience is the social-economic model which is one of the most common methods. The model being used by NRS (National Readership Survey Ltd) for a long time it is still a very useful way of identifying an audience and deconstructing a text.

National Readership Survey (NRS) demographic categories

Social Class	Social Status	Occupation
A	Upper middle class	Higher managerial, administrative or professional
B	Middle Class	Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1	Lower-Middle Class	Supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2	Skilled Working Class	Skilled manual workers
D	Working Class	Semi and unskilled manual workers
E	Those at the lowest level of subsistence	State pensioners or widows (no other earner), casual or lowest grade workers

 One of the most common ways of identifying a target audience is the social-economic model. Even though this model, used by the NRS (National Readership Survey Ltd), has been used for a long time, it is still useful way of identifying an audience and deconstructing a text. 

Why are age ratings put in place?

EFFECTS THEORY

The ‘Frankfurt School’ is the term that is given to a group of social scientists who were originally based as the Institute for Social Research Frankfurt, these social scientists conducted research in to the power the mass media has potentially got over audiences.

The way that media could be used as a tool of fascist propaganda is what the social scientists are concerned with. The founders of the ‘Frankfurt School’ were left-wing (Marxist) they criticized the capitalist system controlling the mass media for creating a mass culture that eliminated oppositional or alternatives.

This group was responsible for the ‘HYPODEMIC NEEDLE MODEL’ this is the idea that a mass audience are passive and are simply ‘injected’ with messages and views created by the media producers. Critics still believe that there is some truth behind this model (explaining why there are age restrictions on things and how some things are banned completely) other believes that the model simplifies the situation. For example, David Morley did a nationwide ‘Reception Theory’ study in 1980 to determine how different audiences view the same text (he showed them all the same edition of Nationwide – a local news program shown after BBC One’s main evening news bulletin). He found that the way audiences interpreted a text generally fell under one of the following:

•                A preferred reading of the text most likely to be received by the intended target audience who share the same ideologies (people read it as the creators intended – this is the closest to the hypodermic needle).

•                An oppositional reading, generally by people who are not in the intended target audience (they reject the meaning intended and receive an alternative meaning).

•                 A negotiated reading (basically accepts the meaning but interpret it to suit their own position/ideologies.

Overall the this shows the majority of the consumers are not passive and their reading of a text is influenced and effected by their own ideologies- a product simply cannot ‘brainwash all people’ like a drug. However, some are susceptible and easily influenced (especially children who have yet to complete the early years of the socialization process), hence age ratings etc. 

Nationality/values:

IDEOLOGY: Ideology is important when considering the factors when creating a product because you have the ideology your target audience wishes to see. Ideology refers to the system of beliefs that is constructed and presented by a media product. As Marx claims, the dominant ideologies are those that already underpin society. This can differ country to country, for example a soap made for UK viewers would be different to a soap for a US audience, Spain or Iran (the same can be said for social realist programs like Shameless, music and comedy). 

THE FOUR C’S (cross-cultural consumer characteristics): This is one of the earliest, but still most popular, ways of profiling audiences. It profiles the audience in terms of wants and needs, not simply demographic. The categories are as follows:

•   Mainstreamers (this is the largest group. They are concerned with stability, mainly buying well-known brands and consuming mainstream texts).

•   Aspirers (they are seeking to improve themselves. They tend to define themselves by high status brands, absorbing the ideologies associated with the products and believing their status alters as a result)

•   Succeeders (people who feel secure and in control – generally they are in positions of power. They buy brands which reinforce their feelings of control and power).

•   Reformers (idealists who actively consume eco-friendly products and buy brands which are environmentally supportive and healthy. They also buy products which establish this ‘caring and responsible’ ideology).

Individuals (highly media literate, expects high-production advertising and buys product image not product, requires high-profiling sophisticated advertising campaigns).

My Audience

In relation to my own audience, the age range will be between 16 and 30 as this is the main audience for the indie genre. The class band is from B to D and the ethnic origin is mainly white British with other ethnicity's in the minority. The audience is not gender specific.

Prezi-Magazine Institutions

http://prezi.com/ohkqpoa-ecdn/untitled-prezi/